2

3
4
5
First published in 1987

This edition first published in 2008 by

Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an

informa business

Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

© 1987 The Crossroad Publishing Company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 10: 0-415-42600-6 (Set)

ISBN 10: 0-415-44262-1 (Volume 48)

6
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42600-8 (Set)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-44262-6 (Volume 48)

eISBN: 978-1-134-53902-4

Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality
of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the
original copies may be apparent.

7
8
First published in Great Britain in 1987 by
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

World Spirituality, Volume 19

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Art Editor

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright © 1987 by The Crossroad Publishing Company

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without

permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of
brief passages in criticism.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Islamic spirituality: foundations.—

(World spirituality; v. 19)
1. Islam 2. Spirituality
I. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein II. Series
297'.4 BP163

ISBN 0-7102-1097-3

9
In the Name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate

Say, the Spirit is from the Command of my Lord

10
11
Contents

PREFACE TO THE SERIES

INTRODUCTION

LIST OF TRANSLITERATIONS

Part One: The Roots of the Islamic Tradition and

Spirituality

1 The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

2 The Spiritual Significance of the Quran

Allahbakhsh K. Brohi

3 Traditional Esoteric Commentaries on the Quran

Abdurrahman Habil

4 The Spiritual Significance of the Substance of the Prophet

Frithjof Schuon

5 The Life, Traditions, and Sayings of the Prophet

I. The Life of the Prophet

12
Jaʿfar Qasimi

II. Sunnah and Ḥadīth

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

6 The Inner Meaning of the Islamic Rites: Prayer, Pilgrimage,

Fasting, Jihād

Syed Ali Ashraf

7 The Spiritual Dimension of Prayer

Allahbakhsh K. Brohi

Part Two: Aspects of the Islamic Tradition

8 Sunnism

Abdur-Rahman Ibrahim Doi

9 Twelve Imam Shīʿism

Syed Husain M. Jafri

10 Ismāʿīlism

Azim Nanji

11 Female Spirituality in Islam

Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti

Part Three: Sufism: The Inner Dimension of Islam

13
12 The Nature and Origin of Sufism

Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din

13 The Early Development of Sufism

Victor Danner

14 The Spiritual Practices of Sufism

Jean-Louis Michon

15 Sufi Science of the Soul

Mohammad Ajmal

Part Four: Knowledge of Reality

16 God

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

17 The Angels

Sachiko Murata

18 The Cosmos and the Natural Order

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

19 Man

Charles le Gai Eaton

14
20 Eschatology

William C. Chittick

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CONTRIBUTORS

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

INDEXES

15
16
Preface to the Series

THE PRESENT VOLUME is part of a series entitled World

Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest,
which seeks to present the spiritual wisdom of the human race
in its historical unfolding. Although each of the volumes can
be read on its own terms, taken together they provide a
comprehensive picture of the spiritual strivings of the human
community as a whole—from prehistoric times, through the
great religions, to the meeting of traditions at the present.

Drawing upon the highest level of scholarship around the

world, the series gathers together and presents in a single
collection the richness of the spiritual heritage of the human
race. It is designed to reflect the autonomy of each tradition in
its historical development, but at the same time to present the
entire story of the human spiritual quest. The first five
volumes deal with the spiritualities of archaic peoples in Asia,
Europe, Africa, Oceania, and North and South America. Most
of these have ceased to exist as living traditions, although
some perdure among tribal peoples throughout the world.
However, the archaic level of spirituality survives within the
later traditions as a foundational stratum, preserved in ritual
and myth. Individual volumes or combinations of volumes are
devoted to the major traditions: Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist,
Confucian, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Included within
the series are the Jain, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions. In
order to complete the story, the series includes traditions that
have not survived but have exercised important influence on
living traditions—such as Egyptian, Sumerian, classical

17
Greek and Roman. A volume is devoted to modern esoteric
movements and another to modern secular movements.

Having presented the history of the various traditions, the

series devotes two volumes to the meeting of spiritualities.
The first surveys the meeting of spiritualities from the past to
the present, exploring common themes that can provide the
basis for a positive encounter, for example, symbols, rituals,
techniques. Finally, the series closes with a dictionary of
world spirituality.

A longer version of this preface may be found in Christian

Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, the first
published volume in the series.

Each volume is edited by a specialist or a team of specialists

who have gathered a number of contributors to write articles
in their fields of specialization. As in this volume, the articles
are not brief entries but substantial studies of an area of
spirituality within a given tradition. An effort has been made
to choose editors and contributors who have a cultural and
religious grounding within the tradition studied and at the
same time possess the scholarly objectivity to present the
material to a larger forum of readers. For several years some
five hundred scholars around the world have been working on
the project.

In the planning of the project, no attempt was made to arrive

at a common definition of spirituality that would be accepted

18
by all in precisely the same way. The term “spirituality,” or
an equivalent, is not found in a number of the traditions. Yet
from the outset, there was a consensus among the editors
about what was in general intended by the term. It was left to
each tradition to clarify its own understanding of this meaning
and to the editors to express this in the introduction to their
volumes. As a working hypothesis, the following description
was used to launch the project:

The series focuses on that inner dimension of the person called by certain
traditions “the spirit.” This spiritual core is the deepest center of the person. It
is here that the person is open to the transcendent dimension; it is here that
the person experiences ultimate reality. The series explores the discovery of
this core, the dynamics of its development, and its journey to the ultimate
goal. It deals with prayer, spiritual direction, the various maps of the spiritual
journey, and the methods of advancement in the spiritual ascent.

By presenting the ancient spiritual wisdom in an academic

perspective, the series can fulfill a number of needs. It can
provide readers with a spiritual inventory of the richness of
their own traditions, informing them at the same time of the
richness of other traditions. It can give structure and order,
meaning and direction to the vast amount of information with
which we are often overwhelmed in the computer age. By
drawing the material into the focus of world spirituality, it can
provide a perspective for understanding one’s place in the
larger process. For it may well be that the meeting of spiritual
paths—the assimilation not only of one’s own spiritual
heritage but of that of the human community as a whole—is
the distinctive spiritual journey of our time.

EWERT COUSINS

19
20
Introduction

THE SPIRIT MANIFESTS ITSELF in every religious

universe where the echoes of the Divine Word are still
audible, but the manner in which the manifestations of the
Spirit take place differs from one religion to another. In Islam,
the Spirit breathes through all that reveals the One and leads
to the One, for Islam’s ultimate purpose is to reveal the Unity
of the Divine Principle and to integrate the world of
multiplicity in the light of that Unity. Spirituality in Islam is
inseparable from the awareness of the One, of Allah, and a
life lived according to His Will. The principle of Unity
(al-tawḥīd) lies at the heart of the Islamic message and
determines Islamic spirituality in all its multifarious
dimensions and forms. Spirituality is tawḥīd and the degree of
spiritual attainment achieved by any human being is none
other than the degree of his or her realization of tawḥīd. For
the Word manifested Itself in what came to be the Islamic
universe in order to declare the glory of the One and to lead
human beings to the realization of the One.

The central theophany of Islam, the Quran, is the source par

excellence of all Islamic spirituality. It is the Word manifested
in human language. Through it, knowledge of the One and the
paths leading to Him were made accessible in that part of the
cosmos which was destined to become the abode of Islam.
Likewise, the soul and inner Substance of the Prophet are the
complementary source of Islamic spirituality—hidden
outwardly but living as presence and as transforming grace
within the hearts of those who tread the path of realization.

21
Moreover, it can be said that both the created order and man
himself are also marked by the imprint of Divine Unity and
must be taken into consideration in any study of Islamic
spirituality. According to the Quran, God has manifested His
signs upon the “horizons” or the macro-cosmic world and
also within the soul of man, for He has “breathed into man”
His own Spirit (nafakhtu fīhi min rūḥī(XXXVIII, 72).1 To be
fully human is to stand on the vertical axis of existence and to
seek tawḥīd, to see the reflection of the One in all that makes
up the manifold order from the angelic to the mineral.

Related to Islamic spirituality are all the doctrines that speak

of the One, all the artistic forms that reflect the principle of
Unity, and all human actions that issue from the inner man as
a theomorphic being. To live by the Will of God Who is One
and to obey His Laws is the alpha of the spiritual life. Its
omega is to surrender one’s will completely to Him and to
sacrifice one’s existence before the One Who alone can be
said ultimately to be. Between the two stand various levels of
correct and ever more interiorized action, and above the plane
of action stand the love of God and finally knowledge of Him,
the knowledge that is summarized in the testimony
(Shahādah) of Islam Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh (There is no divinity
but God, but Allah, the One). All that one needs to know and
can know is already contained in this testimony. To accept it
along with the second Shahādah, Muḥammadun rasūl Allāh
(Muḥammad is God’s Messenger) is to become a Muslim. To
realize its full meaning is to reach the highest degree of
spirituality, to act perfectly according to His Will, to love
only the Beloved, and to know all that can be known. It is to
gain sanctity and attain the crown of spiritual poverty. It is to
become a friend of God, walī Allāh, the term that Muslims
use for saint.

22
In a profound sense, Islamic spirituality is nothing other than
the realization of tawḥīd. Its study is nothing other than
tracing the impact in depth of tawḥīd upon the life, actions,
art, and thought of that segment of the human race which
makes up the Islamic people or ummah. One might, however,
ask how this definition differs from that of Islam as a whole.
The answer lies in the dimension of depth or inwardness
which distinguishes Islamic spirituality from the Islamic
religion as a whole. Islam embraces all of human life, both
the outward and the inward. Any comprehensive work on
Islam would have to consider both aspects, the socio-political
and economic dimension as well as the inner dimension. But
a work devoted to Islamic spirituality must concern itself
primarily with what leads to inwardness and the world of the
Spirit. It must deal with the outward elements of the religion
to the extent that they serve as vehicles for the life of the
Spirit without in any way losing sight of the great significance
of the outward dimension, which is indispensable for the
inner life.

The Term “Spirituality” in Islamic Languages

Since the term “spirituality” as used in the English language

has obviously strong Christian connotations, some may raise
the question: What does spirituality mean in the context of the
Islamic tradition itself? The answer to such a question could
best be found by turning to the term “spirituality” in the major
Islamic languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. In
these and most other languages in which the ethos of Islam
and its spirituality have found expression, the terms used for
“spirituality” are rūḥāniyyah (Arabic), maʿnawiyyat (Persian),
or their derivatives. An analysis of these terms alone is
sufficient to provide a key for understanding the meaning of

23
spirituality in its Islamic context. Both terms are of Arabic
origin, drawn from the language of the Quran and the Islamic
Revelation. The first is derived from the word rūḥ, meaning
spirit, concerning which the Quran instructs the Prophet2 to
say, when he was asked about the nature of spirit, “The Spirit
is from the command of my Lord” (XVII, 85). The second
derives from the word maʿnā, literally “meaning,” which
connotes inwardness, “real” as opposed to “apparent” and
also “spirit” as this term is understood traditionally—that is,
pertaining to a higher level of reality than both the material
and the psychic and being directly related to the Divine
Reality Itself.

In summary, these terms refer to that which is related to the

world of the Spirit, is in Divine Proximity, possesses
inwardness and interiority, and is identified with the
real—and therefore also, from the Islamic point of
view—permanent, and abiding rather than the transient and
passing. Taken together, these meanings reveal aspects of
Islamic spirituality as it is understood by traditional Islam and
from the Islamic point of view, which is the perspective of
this work.

There is also another dimension to the meaning of

“spirituality,” as used in Islamic languages. When this term is
employed, there is always evoked a sense of the presence of
the barakah, or that grace which flows in the vein of the
universe and within the life of man to the extent that he
dedicates himself to God. There is, in addition, the sense of
moral perfection and beauty of the soul as far as human
beings are concerned. There is also a “presence” which brings
about recollection of God and the paradisal world when ideas,
sounds, and words and, in general, objects and works of art

24
are involved. In all these cases, the term “spirituality” evokes
in the Muslim mind a proximity to God and the world of the
Spirit.

The term always possesses a positive connotation, never

being either anti-intellectual or antinomian. If there is
anything that can be opposed to it, in the Islamic context, it is
that interpretation of Islam which would limit itself only to
the outward forms without consideration of the inner reality
and the spirit that resides within these forms. Otherwise, the
spiritual is never opposed to the formal. Rather, it always
makes use of the formal, which it interiorizes. Also, the
spiritual cannot be simply equated with the esoteric as
opposed to the exoteric. Although the spiritual is more closely
related to the esoteric dimension (al-bāṭin) of Islam than to
any other aspect of the religion, it is also very much
concerned with the exoteric acts and the Divine Law as well
as theology, philosophy, the arts, and the sciences created by
Islam and its civilization. But its concern with the exoteric is
always with the aim of making possible the journey from the
outward to the abode of inwardness.

The essence of Islamic spirituality, then, is the realization of

Unity, as expressed in the Quran, on the basis of the prophetic
model and with the aid of the Prophet. The goal of this
spirituality is to become embellished by the Divine Qualities
through attainment of those virtues which were possessed in
their perfection by the Prophet and with the aid of methods
and the grace which issue from him and the Quranic
Revelation. The spiritual life is based at once upon the
reverential fear of God and obedience to His Will, love of
God to which the Quran refers in the verse, “He loves them
and they love Him” (V, 54), and knowledge of God which is

25
the ultimate goal of creation. Islamic spirituality is a love
always colored and conditioned by knowledge and based on
an obedience already practiced and contained in living
according to the Divine Law, which embodies God’s concrete
will for Muslims.

This spirituality has rejuvenated Islamic society over the ages

and produced countless men and women of saintly nature
who have fulfilled the goal of human existence and brought
joy to other human beings. It has caused the flowering of
some of the world’s greatest art, ranging from gardening to
music, and made possible the appearance of some of the most
outstanding philosophers and scientists whom the world has
known. It has also carried out a discourse with other religions
when circumstances have demanded. It has always remained
at the heart of Islam and is the key for a deeper understanding
of Islam in its many aspects.

Design of the Islamic Volumes

There are two volumes devoted to Islamic spirituality in the

series World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the
Religious Quest. Their purpose, in contrast to studies on the
Islamic religion itself, is to bring out the spiritual aspect of
Islam, as described above. Much has been written in
European languages on nearly every aspect of Islam, mostly
from an outsider’s point of view and some from either within
the Islamic tradition or sympathetic to it. Yet Islamic
spirituality has rarely been treated as a distinct category in
either type of work, so that the present volumes may, in a
sense, be considered as the first major collection of essays in
English on this crucial subject. This lack of precedent has

26
posed many problems and challenges not only in the
conception of the work but also in its execution.

This first volume is designed to present the foundations of

Islamic spirituality, treating in the first section its roots in the
Quran, the Prophet, his life and sayings, the Islamic rites of
prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and jihād. The second section
presents the basic traditions of Islam: Sunnism, Twelve-Imam
Shīʿism, and Ismāʿīlism, along with a study of female
spirituality in Islam. The third section is devoted to Sufism:
its nature, origin, early development, and spiritual practices,
as well as the Sufi science of the soul. The fourth section
deals with knowledge of reality: the Islamic doctrines of God,
angels, the cosmos and natural order, man, and eschatology.

The second volume will present Islamic spirituality in its

manifestations in history and culture as it has developed
throughout a vast area of the globe in the form of Sufi orders,
in the arts and literature, from architecture to poetry, and in
philosophy and the sciences. Throughout the two volumes the
goal will be to show how the essence and manifestations of
Islamic spirituality are concerned with the principle of Divine
Unity.

As treated in the first part of this volume, the roots and

definitive sources of Islamic spirituality are, of course, the
Word of God as revealed in the Quran and the nature and
inner Substance of the Prophet, who received the Word and
made it known to mankind. The significance of these
principal sources can be understood only if one turns to the
inner aspect of the Quranic and Prophetic realities and does
not limit oneself to the external meaning of the words of the
Quran or merely the historical events in the life of the

27
Prophet. Of great importance, therefore, have been the
esoteric commentaries on the Quran in the spiritual life of the
Islamic community and of the individual Muslim. Likewise,
in addition to the spiritual significance of the Prophet, one
must consider his sayings and traditions, Ḥadīth and Sunnah,
which have crystallized this spirituality in specific words,
norms, and deeds that have been emulated over the centuries
by all Muslims, especially those in quest of the spiritual life.

The roots of Islamic spirituality are also found in the Islamic

rites that constitute the pillars of the faith: the rites of daily
prayers, fasting, and pilgrimage as well as the paying of
religious tax, and that exertion upon the path of God, or jihād,
which is usually mistranslated as “holy war.” The description
of these rites in their external forms and the legal conditions
pertaining to them belong to general works on Islam and need
not be treated in detail in a study devoted to spirituality. But
because these rites are the means by which man approaches
God, they are of the utmost importance in Islamic spirituality.
They are like the descent of the inward and the spiritual
toward the outward and material worlds in order to enable
man to return to the inward and reach the world of the Spirit.
That is why so many classical works on Islamic spirituality
have major sections devoted to what they call secrets of
worship, asrār al-ʿibādāt, that is, the inner meaning of the
Islamic rites.

The second part of this volume deals with the major segments
of the Islamic community: Sunnism and Shīʿism. This
division does not destroy the unity of Islam, since both issue
from the same source. They are united in their acceptance of
Divine Unity, prophecy, and eschatology, as well as
reverence for the text of the Quran. But they emphasize

28
different aspects of Islamic spirituality and have their own
doctrinal and practical formulation concerning the
theological, philosophical, and social teachings of Islam.
Moreover, each possesses a profound piety which, although
Islamic, possesses what can be called its own particular
spiritual perfume. In order to bring out the full flavor of the
spiritual life in each of these schools, this volume has
considered them from the point of view of those who live and
practice their distinctive piety. At the same time, it has
provided a scholarly understanding of the theological and
historical differences that have distinguished them from each
other over the ages, as well as a description of the different
ways in which each has emphasized an aspect of Islamic piety
and has reflected a particular dimension of the inner nature of
the Prophet himself. Although separate articles are devoted to
Sunnism and Shīʿism, most of the volume, including the
articles on Sufism and on doctrine, has been written
predominately from the Sunni point of view, so that Sunni
spirituality is not confined merely to the article specifically on
Sunnism.

Included in this part is an article on female spirituality. In the

context of today’s world, it is of the utmost importance to
make it clear that it is possible for a woman to follow the
spiritual life in Islam. It is also important to bring to light the
characteristics of such a life and tip observe how Islamic
female spirituality has manifested itself over the ages. This
subject is especially timely in view of the interest in female
spirituality in the West along with considerable
misunderstanding about the teaching of Islam concerning
women. To do full justice to this subject, it must be treated by
a Muslim woman who has herself lived the spiritual life and
who can at the same time express something of its features to

29
a Western audience in English. There exists in Islam a type of
spirituality with a distinct feminine color. This needs to be
made known in a language that does justice to it by beginning
from within and remaining faithful to its nature and norm.

Part 3 deals with Sufism, the most accessible source of the

inner dimension of Islam. Some aspects of this inner
dimension, or al-bāṭin, also manifest themselves in both
Twelve-Imam and Ismaʿīlī Shīʿism. Sufism, which is found
predominantly in Sunnism, also exists, however, within
Shīʿism, independently of the partly esoteric nature of
Shīʿism as a whole. In order to grasp the essence of Islamic
spirituality, one must know Sufism in its nature, for this
nature itself derives from the substance of the Prophet and the
inner teachings of the Quran. One must see Sufism as rooted
in the Islamic Revelation in order to appreciate its flowering
into a vast tree during later centuries. It is also essential to
delve into the Sufi disciplines of meditation, contemplation,
and invocation. These practices are, in a sense, none other
than the Islamic rites in their inner dimension. But they have
developed to such an extent as distinct practices that they
need to be considered on their own.

Sufism also possesses a science for the cure of the ailments of

the soul, for untying the knots that entangle the soul and
prevent it from becoming wed to the Spirit. This science,
which is a spiritual alchemy, is a veritable “psychotherapy,”
far superior to modern psychotherapy, for the latter claims to
cure the soul without possessing any power belonging to a
world standing above that of the soul. Therefore, it often
drags the soul to lower psychic regions. The Sufi master, on
the contrary, helps to cure the soul of the disciple by means of
the Spirit, which stands above the soul and which alone is

30
able to pacify and at the same time excite the soul, to
illuminate it and bring about the ecstasy that is the result of
spiritual union.

The final section of this volume deals with doctrinal

knowledge. Since in Islam the intellect (al-ʿaql) and the Spirit
(al-ruḥ) are closely related, the acquiring of knowledge itself
has always been seen as a religious activity. In fact, supreme
knowledge is identified with the highest spiritual realization,
and Islamic spirituality as a whole possesses a sapiential and
gnostic character. That is why the Islamic doctrines on the
nature of Reality or the knowledge of Reality constitute a
basic element of Islamic spirituality. At the apex of this
knowledge stands, of course, knowledge of God. The raison
d’être of Islamic revelation is to make known the doctrine of
the Divine Nature in all its depth and amplitude, to reveal the
knowledge of God as both absolute and infinite, transcendent
and immanent, beyond all description yet possessing Names
and Qualities by which man is asked to call upon Him and to
pray to Him. The knowledge of God is the goal of all Islamic
injunctions and the purpose of creation, according to the
famous ḥadīth, “I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be
known; therefore I created the world so that I would be
known.” This knowledge is, therefore, also the goal of the
spiritual life and both the basis and the fruit of Islamic
spirituality.

Knowledge of reality in the metaphysical sense comprises

also that of the angels, who are often mentioned in the Quran.
The angelic orders in their dazzling depth and breadth, as
described in traditional sources, are related to the ritual aspect
of religion and to daily piety as well as to eschatology,
cosmology, and psychology understood in its traditional

31
sense. From its expression in daily piety to its manifestation
in philosophy, Islamic spirituality is intertwined with the
function and presence of angels. Angelology is a key to the
understanding of the Islamic universe.

No sacred scripture emphasizes more than the Quran the

participation of the cosmos in God’s Revelation. Through the
Quranic Revelation, the cosmos is in a sense re-sacralized and
returned to its primordial spiritual status. Meditation on the
phenomena of nature is considered a religious duty in the
Quran. On the basis of its injunctions and the very spirit of
Islam, throughout the centuries Muslims have continued to
draw spiritual sustenance from virgin nature. It is not possible
to understand Islamic spirituality fully without
comprehending the spiritual significance of nature in both the
Quran and subsequent schools of Islamic thought. The sun
and the moon are not only astronomical bodies but also
cosmic realities that participate in the Islamic universe and
which, in the Quran, God Himself takes as witnesses.

Islam contains a doctrine of man that complements its

doctrine of God in His absoluteness and oneness. It presents a
message based on God as He is in Himself—on His
absoluteness and infinitude—and not on a particular
manifestation. In his role as a theomorphic being, man is at
once “nothing” before the Divine Majesty and the vice-gerent
of God who by his theomorphic nature reflects God’s Names
and Qualities in this world. All human beings have the
possibility of realizing the fullness of human nature, or insān,
and of becoming the perfect or universal man (al-insān
al-kāmil), although in actuality such a possibility is realized
only by the prophets and great saints. The “universal man,”

32
the perfect example of which was the Prophet, serves as the
model for the spiritual life.

The last chapters of the Quran emphasize above all else the
eschatological realities in a powerful language that has left its
permanent imprint on the minds and hearts of all Muslims.
The everyday life of traditional Muslims is intertwined with
the reality of death. In accordance with the texts of the Quran,
masters of Islamic spirituality over the ages have emphasized
the importance of remembering death at all times and of
realizing the ephemeral nature of life in this world. There is a
vast corpus of literature in various Islamic languages on
eschatology: on both the end of the world and the posthumous
states that the individual soul must traverse after death. This
type of writing ranges from popular works of pious literature
to philosophical and gnostic texts of the greatest intellectual
and spiritual significance.

The above themes constitute the foundations of Islamic

spirituality, to which this volume is devoted. These
foundations have been and remain an ever-present reality, like
the Kaʿbah itself, for all generations of Muslims from East to
West. From these foundations have issued the manifestations
of Islamic spirituality in diverse regions throughout history,
which will be the subject of the next volume.

Traditional Islamic Scholarship

Before we describe the individual articles in this volume, it is

wise to examine the nature of scholarship within the Islamic
tradition. It is essential to remember that Islamic spirituality,
as well as the Islamic scholarly tradition, is still very much
alive. We are not dealing with an archaic civilization that has

33
already passed into the pages of history and is resuscitated
only through Western scholarly efforts. To bring out the
significance of this spirituality, it is necessary to remain
faithful to its norms and also its own traditional scholarship.
However, it is imperative to remember that this tradition has
not undergone the same changes related to the spread of
humanism, rationalism, empiricism, historicism, and
positivism which, since the Renaissance, have deeply affected
Western scholarship in all domains including religion itself.
The vast majority of Muslims simply do not have the same
attitude toward their Sacred Scripture or the Ḥadīth as those
in the West who follow the methods of what has become
known as higher criticism. Nor can the Muslims be accused
of shortcomings if they have not followed the prevalent,
modern Western world view but have remained faithful to
their own tradition. Islamic spirituality is a living reality and
must be presented as such rather than as a cadaver dissected
according to a world view that is alien to it. This is the
necessary condition for a study that seeks to be authentic.
And yet Islamic spirituality must be presented to the Western
world in a language that is comprehensible to that world.

These are the considerations that have determined the choice

of the contributors to the Islamic volumes. The editor sought
to invite scholars and spiritual authorities who could express
various facets of Islamic spirituality in a manner that would
be Islamically authentic and at the same time intelligible to a
Western audience. It was necessary to invite scholars who
were immersed in traditional Islamic scholarship with its
emphasis on the oral as well as the written tradition, along
with scholars well versed in Western methodologies yet
sympathetic to Islamic spirituality. It was essential to include
writings of men and women who have themselves lived and

34
experienced this spirituality as well as those well acquainted
with the written primary and secondary sources and with
Western as well as Islamic methods of scholarship.

In certain essays, the reader may encounter a manner of

looking upon traditional sources, the question of authority,
authenticity, and transmission different from what current
Western scholarship upholds. This is due not to a lack of
scholarship but to the presence of another scholarly
tradition—and, most of all, the presence of a living spiritual
tradition whose authenticity and legitimacy cannot be simply
determined by nineteenth-century European methods of
historical criticism.

What are the characteristics of traditional Islamic scholarship?

Islam developed its own indigenous modes of scholarship at
the same time that it assimilated certain aspects of the
linguistic, literary, scientific, and philosophical traditions of
the Greco-Alexandrian and Persian worlds as well as those of
other cultures it encountered throughout its history. In
addition, through the centuries Islam cultivated and refined
spiritual techniques based on Prophetic practice and
elaborated by later masters. It amassed a body of spiritual
wisdom that was often expressed in complex literary forms
with an elaborate symbolic language and supported by
architectonic philosophical structures. There is, in fact, not
one form of traditional scholarship in Islam but many, which
throughout its history have been integrated into various
patterns and which have developed their own methodologies
while maintaining a spiritual and intellectual cohesion. These
have every right to be acknowledged as authentic modes of
scholarship and means of attainment of knowledge. It is true
that for a variety of reasons Islam has not assimilated the

35
techniques and attitudes of Western historical criticism to the
same extent as Jewish and Christian scholarship. The Islamic
volumes in this series reflect this reality and the existing state
of Islamic scholarship: rooted in its own spiritual experience
with its accumulated spiritual wisdom, reflected upon through
its classical scholarly traditions, and employing Western
methods of scholarship to the degree that these methods do
not distort the authenticity of the Islamic tradition.

The reader must accept the right of other religious universes

to live and function according to their own ethos and
principles in order to gain some authentic insights into those
universes rather than viewing them simply through the
perspective of current Western modes of thinking. The reader,
then, should not be surprised if articles on the Quran do not
raise the kinds of questions that Western scholars since the
nineteenth century have raised about the Bible. Nor should
the reader expect to find references to all quotations from the
Ḥadīth or sayings of spiritual teachers. The articles in this and
the subsequent volume reflect a predominantly oral tradition,
where exact references to written sources have not been
established in certain instances, nor are they expected, as
would be the case in a more textually grounded ethos.

The Authors and Their Contributions

In the light of these considerations, the editor invited a

diverse group of scholars and spiritual authorities to
contribute to these volumes. Some of the authors are
well-known scholars, and some younger ones of promise.
Some are spiritual authorities, and others Western—and in
one case Japanese—scholars who have penetrated deeply into
Islamic spirituality and through both empathy and knowledge

36
are in a position to speak about it in an authentic manner.
Moreover, the Muslim scholars are drawn from the length and
breadth of the Islamic world and are known for both their
knowledge and their deep attachment to the Islamic tradition.
It is hoped that in this fashion the richness of Islamic
spirituality has been presented in such a way as to preserve its
authentic nature and reflect the diversity of schools and
approaches while expressing the message in a language that is
comprehensible to the Western reader.

Several of the essays written by Muslim scholars have been

edited by us in order to conform to the norms of the series. In
all such cases we have sought to preserve the tenor of the
original work while adjusting it to the guidelines established
for all the volumes of the series. Our editing has, however,
avoided any attempt to bring about uniformity. Since each
essay is written by a scholar immersed in the subject and
reflects a particular spiritual evaluation of the material, we
have allowed the individual characteristics of each essay to
stand even at the expense of a lack of uniformity of
presentation. Likewise, the translations of the Quran have not
been made uniform and are either by the author of the article
or from the Arberry or Pickthall translations. This lack of
uniformity is amply compensated for by the unity which
dominates the work and which results from the inner unity of
Islamic spirituality itself.

Part 1 of the present volume, “The Roots of Islamic Tradition

and Spirituality,” begins with several essays on the Quran.
The first essay, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, discusses the way
the Quran was revealed and assembled, its names and their
significance, its language and some of its themes. It explores
the important role the Quran plays in the lives of Muslims and

37
the way it serves as the source of all Islamic teachings. The
article focuses on the inner meaning of the Sacred Text and
the way in which the spiritual teachings of Islam are present
in the inner dimension of the Quran. Allahbakhsh K. Brohi
also deals with the significance of the Quran in the life of
Islam but treats the subject more as a Muslim meditating on
its verses and chapters. His essay is an existential witness to
the spiritual significance of the Book and a vivid example of
how a pious Muslim draws sustenance from it and is
nourished by its message. Abdurrahman Habil turns to a more
scholarly and historical treatment of the esoteric
commentaries on the Quran, showing their central importance
for all aspects of spiritual life within the Islamic world.
Beginning with the second/eighth-century commentary of
Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, he deals with various periods in the
history of Quranic interpretation, including both Sufi and
Shīʿite commentaries.

This part includes an exceptional essay by Frithjof Schuon on

the spiritual significance of the Substance of the Prophet.
Speaking as a spiritual authority, Schuon deals with a subject
that has not been treated in such an explicit manner even in
traditional Islamic sources. He brings out the significance of
that invisible yet very real presence of the inner being of the
Prophet in all Islamic spirituality. Jaʿfar Qasimi then turns to
the life, or Sīrah, of the Prophet. He gives a detailed account
of the life of the founder of Islam based completely on
traditional sources, as these sources have been understood and
accepted by Muslims all over the world. His goal is not
historical criticism in the Western sense of the term, but his
work is based on solid traditional scholarship. Rather, he
seeks to make known the life of the Prophet as it affects the
religious and spiritual life of Muslims. In a complementary

38
chapter, S. H. Nasr discusses the significance of the Ḥadīth
literature, that is, the body of the sayings of the Prophet as
sifted and studied by the traditional scholars who over a
millennium ago assembled the canonical collections that were
accepted by the Sunnis and were also assembled separately by
authoritative Shīʿite sources. Although he devotes some space
to a response to Western criticism of the authenticity of the
Ḥadīth, the author seeks to bring out the role of the Ḥadīth in
the spiritual life. In a similar vein, he discusses the actions of
the Prophet (Sunnah) in the light of their importance to
spiritual practice.

Syed Ali Ashraf turns to the study of the meaning of the

Islamic rites: the canonical prayers, fasting, pilgrimage, the
religious tax, and jihād, or holy effort or exertion. He
demonstrates how the rites performed by all Muslims also
possess an inward meaning, which, however, is discovered
only by those who follow the path of inwardness. A. K. Brohi
concludes this part by delving more deeply into the rite of
prayer. Basing himself mostly on the opening chapter of the
Quran, the Sūrat al-fātiḥah, Brohi shows how and why the
Quran commands men and women to pray and how prayer
transforms and interiorizes them.

Part 2, “Aspects of the Islamic Tradition,” begins with the

article of Abdur-Rahman Ibrahim Doi on Sunnism. The
author delineates the principles of Sunni belief and the
differences between Sunnism and Shīʿism, provides a brief
history of the various caliphates throughout Islamic history,
and treats practices and virtues emphasized in Sunnism. In his
discussion of Twelve-Imam Shīʿism, Syed Husain M. Jafri
points to the Shīʿite principles of belief and the differences
between Shīʿism and Sunnism. He discusses extensively the

39
role of the Imam and the significance of the lives of some of
the Imams in the history of Shīʿism and treats specific
features of Shīʿite piety and practices. Azim Nanji deals with
the early development of Ismāʿīlism, the foundation of the
Fāṭimid dynasty, the later proliferation of Ismāʿīlism into the
Nizārīs and Mustaʿlīs, the growth of the Yemeni form of
Ismāʿīlism, and finally the spread of Ismāʿīlism in India. He
also deals with some of the major figures of Ismāʿīlī thought
and the central themes with which they were concerned.

Finally, in this section Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti, a

Pakistani woman who is both a scholar and a follower of the
Islamic spiritual path, deals with female spirituality in Islam.
She treats these themes both historically, as embodied in the
wives of the Prophet and the early women saints, and as it can
be practiced today. She deals with the spiritual life as it
concerns women and the spiritual significance of the life of
women as ordered by the Sharīʿah or Divine Law. Although
her treatment of feminine spirituality is very different from
the discussion of women’s issues in the West today, it stands
in the mainstream of traditional Islamic life. The author
herself is at the center of the religious life of her country and
very active in the question of the role of women in the
present-day life of Pakistan.

Part 3, “Sufism” begins with an essay on the nature and origin

of Sufism written from within the Sufi tradition by Abu Bakr
Siraj Ed-Din. Basing himself entirely on the Quran, the author
demonstrates the completely Islamic origin of Sufism and
shows why Sufism could not but be the response of the
Muslim soul at its deepest level to the call of the Quran.
Victor Danner likewise emphasizes the Islamic origin of
Sufism in his essay on its early development. He

40
demonstrates the necessity of the rise of the Sufi circles and
orders and provides a history of early Sufism seen from
within. He also treats the tension between Sufism and the
exoteric dimension of the religion, which necessitated the
synthesis of al-Ghazzālī in the fifth/eleventh century.
Jean-Louis Michon turns to the specific question of spiritual
practices, again emphasizing the origin of these practices in
the Quran and the Sunnah. He analyzes the major Sufi
practices, such as the chanting of poems in praise of the
Prophet, litanies, and invocations. Mohammad Ajmal
concludes this section with a study of the Sufi science of the
soul. Basing himself chiefly on the fourteenth/
twentieth-century Indian Sufi authority Mawlana Thanvi, the
author analyzes the Sufi science of the soul and compares it
with schools of Western psychotherapy.

Part 4, “Knowledge of Reality,” concludes the volume by

treating knowledge of divine, cosmic, and human reality. In
his essay on God, S. H. Nasr points to the centrality of the
doctrine of God as the One in all aspects of Islam and the
knowledge of the One as the supreme goal of Islamic
spirituality. The author also elaborates the Quranic doctrine of
the transcendence and immanence of God and of the Divine
Names. Sachiko Murata turns to the Islamic doctrine of
angels, drawing from the Quran and Ḥadīth as well as later
traditional sources. She discusses the meaning of angels, their
hierarchy, and their role in religious life and in the life of the
cosmos. She treats also the function of the angels as
instruments of illumination and their significance in the
spiritual life, as attested by Gabriel’s role in guiding the
Prophet in his Nocturnal Ascension to the Throne of God. In
his essay on the cosmos and the natural order, S. H. Nasr
highlights the cosmic dimension of the Quranic Revelation.

41
Nature is a cosmic book revealing the “signs” of God, and the
Quran emphasizes the spiritual relation that exists between
man and nature. The author explores Islamic cosmology, its
relation to the Quran, and its significance for the spiritual life.
In his essay on the Islamic doctrine of man, Charles le Gai
Eaton explains the importance of the rapport between man
and the cosmos. As the “caliph of God” (khalīfat Allāh) on
earth, man is the custodian of the natural environment and the
bridge between heaven and earth. Eaton discusses the
responsibilities of man toward God, himself, society, and the
cosmic order. Finally, William C. Chittick turns to the
complex question of eschatology, beginning with the
references to eschatology in the Quran and Ḥadīth. He deals
with traditional accounts of death and the afterlife, the
metaphysical discussion of eschatology, the lesser and the
greater resurrection, and the significance of eschatology for
the spiritual life.

The diversity of themes and approaches in this volume

reflects the reality of its subject matter as well as the world to
which it is addressed. By seeking to treat the major aspects of
Islamic spirituality with authenticity and sympathy in a
language comprehensible to a Western audience, we hope not
only to make Islamic spirituality better known but also to
serve the cause of spirituality itself in the deepest sense
possible. To know an authentic spirituality in depth is to
know spirituality as such, especially if the spirituality in
question is of the universality, diversity, power, and living
presence of that of Islam.

In conclusion, we wish to thank all the contributors from both

the Orient and the Occident, who have made this and the
subsequent volume possible despite great distances and

42
difficulties of communication. We also wish to thank
especially Katherine O’Brien, who has assisted us with both
the editing and the selection of illustrations. Our thanks are
also due to Sarolyn Joseph, who has helped in typing the
manuscript, and to S. V. R. Nasr, who has assisted in the
preparation of the glossary and bibliography. Finally, we
express our gratitude to Ewert Cousins for his continuous
help, to William Chittick for his assistance in correcting the
proofs and making many valuable suggestions, and to Carrie
Rodomar for her help in the latter stage of the editing process.
May the collaboration of all involved in this work make
possible a better understanding of Islamic spirituality in a
world so much in need of the message of the Spirit that
bloweth where it listeth.

Wa mā tawfīqī illā biʾLlāh

Our success comes only through God.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Notes

1. In accordance with the Islamic perspective and the wish of

the authors of this work, the word “man” in English is used as
corresponding to the Arabic insān, or human, and possesses
no “sexist” connotations.

2. In traditional Islamic sources, the name of the Prophet is

always followed by the formula salla ʾLlāhu ʿalayhī wa
sallam—that is, “blessings and peace be upon him.” The
names of the other prophets—and in Shīʿīsm also the
Imams—are followed by ʿalayhī-ʾs-salām, that is, “peace be

43
upon him.” Since this work is written in English for a
predominantly non-Muslim audience, the traditional formulas
are not included. Moreover, throughout the two Islamic
volumes in this series, whenever the term “Prophet” is used
with a capital P, it refers to the Prophet of Islam. As for the
Quran, in Arabic it is usually called the Noble or Glorious
Quran (al-Karīm, al-Majīd), the term “Holy Quran” being a
modern Muslim usage derived from the term “Holy Bible.” In
the case of the sacred book of Islam also, for the same reasons
as above, only the term “Quran” will be used.

44
45
List of Transliterations

Arabic character

ٔ ʾ

‫ ب‬b

‫ ت‬t

‫ ث‬th

‫ج‬ j

‫ح‬ ḥ

‫خ‬ kh

‫د‬ d

‫ذ‬ dh

‫ر‬ r

46
‫ز‬ z

‫ س‬s

‫ ش‬sh

‫ ص‬ṣ

‫ ض‬ḍ

‫ط‬ ṭ

‫ظ‬ ẓ

‫ع‬ ʿ

‫غ‬ gh

‫ ف‬f

‫ق‬ q

‫ ك‬k

‫ل‬ l

47
‫م‬ m

‫ن‬ n

‫ه‬ h

‫و‬ w

‫ ي‬y

‫ۃ‬ ah; at (construct state)

‫( لﺎ‬article) al- and ʾl- even before the anteropalatals)

long vowel

‫ ىﺎ‬ā

‫ و‬ū

‫ ي‬ī

short vowels

48
 u

dipthongs

aw

ay

iyy (final form ī)

uww (final form ū)

Persian letters added to the Arabic alphabet

‫ پ‬p

‫ چ‬ch

‫ ژ‬zh

49
50
 Part One

THE ROOTS OF THE ISLAMIC TRADITION AND

SPIRITUALITY

51
52
 1

The Quran as the Foundation of Islamic Spirituality

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

IF THE SOUL OF THE PROPHET is the fountainhead of

Islamic spirituality, the Quran is like that lightning which
having struck the human receptacle caused this fountainhead
to gush forth or like the water descending from heaven which
made streams to flow from this fountainhead. The Quran is
the origin and source of all that is Islamic, including, of
course, spirituality and the Muḥammadan grace (al-barakat
al-muḥammadiyyah); and the whole of the spiritual path that
emanates from the very Substance of the Prophet owes its
existence to the descent of the Word of God upon the virgin
soul of His Messenger. If there had not been a Night of Power
(laylat al-qadr), when the Quran descended from the Divine
Empyrean to the human plane, there would have been no
Night of Ascension (laylat al-miʿrāj), when the Prophet
ascended from the earth to the Divine Throne, an ascension
that is the model of all spiritual realization in Islam.

The Nature of the Quran

The Quran is the verbatim revelation of the Word of God,

revealed in Arabic through the archangel Gabriel to the
Prophet during the twenty-three-year period of his prophetic
mission. The first verses were revealed when the Prophet was
meditating in the cave of Ḥirāʾ on the Mountain of Light

53
(jabal al-nūr) near Mecca, and the last shortly before his
death. The verses were memorized by many of the
companions and gradually set to writing by such companions
as ʿAlī and Zayd. Finally, during the time of ʿUthmān, the
third caliph, the definitive text based on these early copies
and the confirmation of those who had heard the verses from
the mouth
of the Prophet was copied and sent to the four corners of the
Islamic world. The text of the Quran is thus not based on long
periods of compilation and interpretation by human agents.1
Rather, the Quran is the actual Word of God as revealed to
His Messenger and is like Christ for Christians, who is
himself the Word of God brought into the world through the
Virgin Mary. She, therefore, plays a role analogous to that of
the soul of the Prophet; both are pure, immaculate, and
virginal before the Divine Word.2 Consequently, not only the
meaning of the Quran but also its form—and, in fact, all that
relates to it—is of a sacred character. The written words as
calligraphy, the sounds of the recited text, the very physical
presence of the Book, as well as, of course, the message
contained therein, are sacred and spiritually important.

To understand the spiritual significance of the Quran, it is

essential to remember that the Quran was a sonoral revelation.
The first words of the Sacred Text revealed by Gabriel
surrounded the Prophet like an ocean of sound as the
archangel himself filled the whole of the sky. The sound of
the Quran penetrates the Muslim’s body and soul even before
it appeals to his mind. The sacred quality of the psalmody of
the Quran can cause spiritual rapture even in a person who
knows no Arabic. In a mysterious way, this sacred quality is
transmitted across the barrier of human language and is felt
by those hundreds of millions of non-Arab Muslims, whether

54
they be Persian, Turkish, African, Indian, or Malay, whose
hearts palpitate in the love of God and whose eyes are
moistened by the tears of joy upon simply hearing the Quran
chanted. It can be said that the Muslim lives in a space
defined by the sound of the Quran and that the sonoral
character of the Quranic revelation remains central to the
spiritual life of Islam.3

It must, furthermore, be remembered that the soul of the

Muslim is composed of Quranic formulas and quotations
which the faithful recite in the language of the Quran
whatever might be their mother tongue. The Muslim begins
every action with bismiʾLlāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm (“in the
Name of God Most Merciful, Most Compassionate”), ends
every action with al-ḥamdu liʾLlāh (“praise be to God”),
resigns himself to what has passed by placing it in God’s
hand with the statement māshāʾ Allāh (“what God has
willed”) and, in planning all future action, realizes that the
future is determined by God’s Will by asserting inshāʾ Allāh
(“if God wills”). The attitudes embedded in these and many
other Quranic formulas determine the framework of the
spiritual life for the Muslim. Through them he places his
action in God’s hand and the past and future in the care of His
Will and Providence.4 The power of these phrases over the
soul and mind of Muslims depends upon the spiritual
presence inherent in the sacred sound of these and other
verses of the Sacred Text as well as their meaning. It is
the sound of the Quran which the newly born child first hears
as the Shahādah is chanted into his or her ears. The Quran is
thus the very first sound that welcomes the Muslim to the first
stages of his journey in this world. And it is the Quran that is
chanted at the moment of death and accompanies the soul in
its posthumous journey to the Divine Presence. The chanted

55
Quran is the prototype of all sacred sound. It is the divine
music that reminds man of his original abode and at the same
time accompanies him in his dangerous journey of return to
that abode; for the Quran, although chanted in this world,
reverberates through all the cosmic levels to the Divine
Presence from which it has issued.

Presence of the Quran

The language of the Quran is the crystallization of the Divine

Word in human language, which seems to be shattered by the
“weight” of the revelation from on high.5 The supreme
miracle of Islam is, in fact, considered to be the eloquence
(balāghah) of the Quran, which is for the Muslim the
prototype of language. This eloquence, much debated and
discussed by Muslim scholars over the ages,6 does not reside
so much in the ordering of the words into powerful poetic
utterance as in the degree of the inspiration as a result of
which every sentence, every word, and every letter scintillate
with a spiritual presence and are like light congealed in
tangible form.

This presence is to be found in the written as well as the

sonoral Quran. The art of writing the text of the Quran is the
sacred art of Islam par excellence. The art of calligraphy,
which is so central to Islamic civilization, is inseparable from
the Quran; for it was for the purpose of writing the Sacred
Text that this art was developed, the earlier styles such as
Kufic being nearly completely and solely identified with the
writing of the Quran.7 Moreover, the art of illumination,
which came into its own and reached its peak of perfection in
the Il-khānid and Mamlūk periods, is the visualization of the
spiritual inspiration related to the writing and recitation of the

56
text of the Word of God. To understand the reverence that
Muslims show toward the Quran, it is necessary to take
cognizance of the spiritual presence in the calligraphy of the
words as well as in the sounds that surround and penetrate
man when the text is chanted. It is this presence that every
faithful Muslim feels instinctively. As a result, he finds
comfort and protection even in the physical book itself and
carries the Sacred Text with him wherever and whenever
possible. The sage finds the same protection in carrying the
quintessence of the Quran, which is God’s Name, in his heart.
According to a ḥadīth, “He who protects the Name of God in
his heart, God protects him in the world.”

The Quran possesses a mysterious presence, which might be

called “magical,” in addition to the Book’s being the source
of Islamic doctrine, ethics, and sacred history. It is this
“magic” that is untranslatable and can only be experienced in
the language of the revelation, while the doctrinal content,
ethical injunctions, or accounts of the prophets and peoples of
old can be rendered into other tongues. This “magic” is
inseparable from the spiritual presence of the sonoral
revelation, which captures the soul of man as a net cast into
the sea in order to return the soul from the domain of
multiplicity to Unity.

The Quran is, like the world, at the same time one and multiple. The world is
multiplicity which disperses and divides; the Quran is a multiplicity which
draws together and draws to Unity. The multiplicity of the holy Book—the
diversity of its words, sentences, pictures and stories—fills the soul and thus
absorbs it and imperceptibly transposes it into the climate of serenity and
immutability by a sort of divine “cunning”. . . . The Quran is like a picture of
everything the human brain can think and feel, and it is by this means that
God exhausts human disquiet, infusing into the believer silence, serenity and
peace.8

57
The Quran is a “world,” but one that leads man to Unity and
prevents the soul from being scattered and dispersed.9

The Names of the Quran

The sacred Book of Islam has many names, of which

al-Qurʾān, meaning “recitation,” is the best known. If this
name refers to the essentially auditory and sonoral nature of
the Text as that which is read and recited,10 some of the other
well-known names of the Book refer to the fact that it
contains all Islamic doctrine and, in fact, the root of all
knowledge. The Quran is thus also known as al-Furqān,
literally, “the discernment,” that is, that which enables man to
distinguish between truth and falsehood, good and evil. The
Book is known also as al-Hudā, the Guide, since it contains
the knowledge that the Muslim must possess in order to
remain upon the straight path (al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm) and
become aware of God’s Will as it concerns him. Moreover,
the Quran is the Umm al-kitāb, the Mother of Books, since it
is the prototype of all “books,” of all that can be known, the
archetype of all things, and since the roots of all knowledge
are contained in the eternal Quran.

All the doctrine and all the knowledge in the Quran are
summarized in the Shahādah, Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh (“there is no
divinity but God”), the supreme metaphysical formula stating
the Oneness of the Divine Principle and the reliance of all
existence and all qualities upon the One. In a sense,
the whole of the Quran is one long litany with the refrain of
Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh and a commentary upon the truth of Unity
(al-tawḥīd) contained therein. Not only the metaphysical,
cosmological, and eschatological doctrines of the Quran but
also the ethical precepts that run throughout the Text are so

58
many ways of asserting the Oneness of God, the reliance of
all things upon Him, and the way to live according to His
Will.

Another name of the Quran is dhikr Allāh, the remembrance

of God. The Quran is itself the reminder of God’s Truth and
Presence, and to recite it is to remember God. Not only is the
first chapter of the Book, the Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, the central part
of the daily prayers; but also the quintessential prayer of the
heart, or dhikr, finds its roots in the Quran and may be said to
be the essence of its message. The Quran therefore contains
both the doctrine and the method of Islamic spirituality, the
doctrine being contained in its quintessential form in the
Shahādah and the method in the invocation of the Name of
God or dhikr. The Quran, the grand theophany of Islam, is
both Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh and dhikr Allāh. It comes from Allah
and provides the means and the methods of returning to Him.

The Quran and Sacred History

The Sacred Book of Islam is replete with episodes of sacred

history. It speaks of people and prophets of old, of battles,
rebellions, love and death, of God’s forgiveness and
punishment. But the Quran, and with it Islam, is singularly
indifferent to the merely historical significance of this sacred
history. The Quran is not a book of history and is even less
concerned with history than is the Bible. The sacred history
recounted in the Quran is in reality the epic of the life of the
soul. The forces of good and evil mentioned in its pages are to
be found within ourselves, and even the prophets are the
objective and external counterparts and complements of the
inner Intellect, which illuminates the heart and mind of
man.11 To recite the pages of the Quran is to become aware of

59
the history of one’s own being, the forces of one’s own soul,
and the conditions of the journey of life at the end of which
stand death and Divine Judgment. It is to see the Will of God
in shaping man’s destiny and man’s own role in weaving the
substance that constitutes our being once the journey of life
terminates and suddenly we find ourselves before the blinding
reality of God’s Presence.

The Quran as the Source of Islamic Thought and Law

Not only the supreme doctrine of Unity but all Islamic

doctrine originates in the Quran or the Ḥadīth, which is the
inspired commentary upon it. All
schools of theology and philosophy, all schools of law and
political theory, all branches of Islam whether Sunni or
Shīʿite base their teachings upon the tenets of the Quran.
Whether they agree or differ on the question of determinism
and free will, the primacy of faith or action, or the relation of
God’s Mercy to His Justice, they all derive their teachings
from the verses of the Quran, which is like an ocean into
which all streams of Islamic thought flow and from which
they ultimately originate. There is no claim to Islamicity
without a Quranic basis.

Likewise, the practices of Muslims as ordained by the

Sharīʿah have their origin in the Quran. Although the
foundations of the Sharīʿah must also be sought in the Ḥadīth
and the elaboration of the Law depends, furthermore, upon
consensus (ijmāʿ) and analogical reasoning (qiyāṣ), in
principle all of the Sharīʿah is already contained in the Quran.
The other sources are only means of elaborating and making
explicit what is already contained in the Sacred Text. As for
ethical attitudes related to the practice of the Sacred Law, they

60
too are to be found in the Quran, which determines for
Muslims all ethical norms and all moral principles. What the
Quran teaches constitutes morality, not what human reason
determines on the basis of its own judgments.

The Quran as the Source of the Spiritual Path and Art

The Quran is the source of not only the Law but also the Way
or the Ṭarīqah. The spiritual life of Islam as it was to
crystallize later in the Sufi orders goes back to the Prophet,
who is the source of the spiritual virtues found in the Muslim
soul. But the soul of the Prophet was itself illuminated by the
Light of God as revealed in the Quran, so that quite justly one
must consider the Quranic revelation as the origin of
Sufism.12 It is not accidental that over the ages the Sufis have
been the foremost expositors and commentators upon the
Quran and that some of the greatest works of Sufism such as
the Mathnawīof Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī are in reality commentaries
upon the Sacred Text. Only the Sufis have, in fact, been able
to cast aside the veil of this celestial bride, which is the
Quran, in order to reveal some of her beauty, which it hides
from the eyes of those who are strangers to her.

Even Islamic art, which may be called “the second

Revelation” of Islam, is rooted in the Quran, not in its
outward form or as a result of applying explicit instructions
contained in the Text but in its inner reality.13 Without the
Quran there would have been no Islamic art. The rhythm
created in the soul of the Muslim, his predilection for
“abstract” expressions of the
truth, the constant awareness of the archetypal world as the
source of all earthly forms, and the consciousness of the
fragility of the world and the permanence of the Spirit have

61
been brought into being by the Quran in the mind and soul of
those men and women who have created the works of Islamic
art. Islamic art is the crystallization of the inner reality of the
Quran and the imprint of this reality on the soul of the
Prophet and, through him, on the soul of Muslims.

The chapters that follow demonstrate clearly the role of the

Quran in Islamic spirituality. From the study of this Sacred
Book there have come into being numerous sciences, while
the souls of men and women have been molded by the
repetition of its phrases and the carrying out of its injunctions.
Like the original revelation of the Word which filled the
totality of space, the Quran has created a whole cosmos
within which the Muslim lives and dies. But the Quran is also
that net cast by the One to pull men and women lost in the
labyrinth of multiplicity back to the Divine Origin. To live in
the world of the Quran and according to its injunctions is to
be guaranteed a life of spiritual felicity and a death that leads
to the abode of peace. In the Islamic universe there is no
spirituality possible without the aid of the Book, which
teaches man all that he can know or that can be known and
which leads man to the goal for which he was created.

Notes

1. As viewed by Muslims, what is called higher criticism in

the West does not at all apply to the text of the Quran.
Elaborate sciences concerning conditions in which the verses
were revealed (shaʾn al-nuzūl), how the Quran was compiled,
how the verses were enumerated, as well as the science and
art of the recitation of the Quran, have been developed by
Muslim scholars over the centuries. We cannot, however, deal
with them here since our goal is to outline the spiritual

62
function and significance of the Quran. But these traditional
sciences provide all the answers to questions posed by
modern Western orientalists about the structure and text of
the Quran, except, of course, those questions that issue from
the rejection of the Divine Origin of the Quran and its
reduction to a work by the Prophet. Once the revealed nature
of the Quran is rejected, then problems arise. But these are
problems of orientalists that arise not from scholarship but
from a certain theological and philosophical position that is
usually hidden under the guise of rationality and objective
scholarship. For Muslims, there has never been the need to
address these “problems” because Muslims accept the
revealed nature of the Quran, in the light of which these
problems simply cease to exist.

2. The comparison of the Quran to Christ and the Virgin to

the soul of the Prophet is a most profound one that was first
studied by F. Schuon and later by W. C. Smith and certain
other Western scholars. See Schuon, The Transcendent Unity
of Religions, trans. P. Townsend (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1984).

3. See E. McClain, Meditations through the Quran: Tonal

Images in an Oral Culture
(York Beach, ME: Nicolas Hays, 1981); see also S. H. Nasr,
Islamic Art and Spirituality (Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1987) chap. 3.

4. On these and other Quranic statements of which the

Muslim soul is composed as a mosaic, see Schuon,
Understanding Islam, trans. D. M. Matheson (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1979) 66–68.

63
5. “It is as though the poverty-stricken coagulation which is
the language of mortal man were under the formidable
pressure of the Heavenly Word broken into a thousand
fragments” (Schuon, Understanding Islam, 44).

6. See, e.g., al-Baqillānī’s Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, studied by G. von

Grunebaum, A Tenth-Century Document of Arabic Literary
Theory and Criticism: The Section on the Poetry of
al-Baqillānīʾs Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1950).

7. See M. Lings, The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and

Illumination (London: Festival of the World of Islam, 1976);
and A. M. Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New
York: New York University Press, 1984).

8. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 50.

9. “Just as the world is an immeasurable carpet in which

everything is repeated in a rhythm of continual change, or
where everything remains similar within the framework of the
law of differentiation, so too the Quran—and with it the
whole of Islam—is a carpet or fabric, in which the center is
everywhere repeated in an infinitely varied way and in which
the diversity is no more than a development of the Unity”
(Schuon, Understanding Islam, 58).

10. The very first verse of the Quran that was revealed begins
with the verb iqraʾ, recite! The command concerns the whole
of the Book, which is meant to be recited and heard as well as
read in the ordinary sense of the term.

64
11. Certain Sufis have, in fact, identified the prophets
mentioned in the Quran with degrees of man’s inner being,
speaking of the “Abraham of thy being,” “Moses of thy
being,” etc. See H. Corbin, En Islam iranien (Paris:
Gallimard, 1971–72) vol. 3, chap. 4.

12. This fact, long denied by orientalists, has finally become

accepted by a number of well-known Western Islamicists
from L. Massignon to A. M. Schimmel. See chapter 12 of this
volume, by Abu Bakr Siraj ad-Din, “The Nature and Origin of
Sufism”; and Mir Valiuddin, The Quranic Sufism (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1959).

13. See T. Burckhardt, The Art of Islam (London: Festival of

the World of Islam, 1976) 8–9.

65
66
 2

The Spiritual Significance of the Quran

ALLAHBAKHSH K. BROHI

Spirituality and Human Growth

IN CONSIDERING THE APPROACH THAT THE QURAN

makes to spirituality, one has to be clear about what the term
“spirituality” in the context of present discourse implies.
Spirituality means many things to many minds and is
undeniably a term that is used in varying contexts with
different shades of meanings. Many have used this term to
designate a special mark of spiritual disposition, and others
have employed it to mark off a higher and final development
of life itself. In the way the present writer understands it, it
will be appropriate to say that anyone who reflects God or the
Holy Spirit as the vital, determining norm or principle of his
or her life could validly be called “spiritual.” Understood in
this sense, the whole of the Quran seems to highlight the
importance of the operation of this norm or principle over the
life of the believer, if he is going to be saved and admitted to
the company of the elect. Negatively, the word “spirituality”
is not to be confused with spiritualism, a term that is rather
incorrectly used for what is really spiritism, that is, the
phenomenon of communicating through media with the
departed spirits on the other side of the river of life.

67
By and large, every religion, including of course Islam,
ultimately deals with the supreme issue of what may be called
spiritualization of man’s consciousness. The biological base
of life in a human being is the same as in any subhuman
animal species such as dogs or cats—at least insofar as the
primary instincts of preservation of self and preservation of
the species to which the animal belongs are concerned.
Religion fosters consciousness, which, functionally regarded,
aims at inducing the believer to transcend his animal nature,
or reach or acquire what—for want of a better expression—
may be called a higher kind of life, a life that is, as the Quran
puts it: khayrun wa abqā, better and eternal.

In life there is such a thing as biological growth of the

individual organism. But this growth is primarily physical in
character; that is, it comes to prevail automatically by the
unfolding of some latent forces inherent in life. It is basically
a kind of growth that consists merely of the addition or
accretion of more to the same. A plant grows in this sense
when it puts on more leaves, more twigs, or thicker leaves
and thicker twigs. It registers a sort of quantitative growth in
bulk, and this virtually implies an accretion of the more to the
same structure and original content of plant life. There is no
transcendance of plant life reflected in such a growth. There is
no going beyond the basic matrix of life, which throughout
remains the same. This may be likened to a sort of horizontal
growth of an organism in the context of the symbolism of the
cross, where the vertical coordinate denotes the possibility of
a movement upward. The vertical dimension reveals the
possibility that the whole horizontal base of the organism is
capable of being considered in a new dimension and being led
to a new domain. In the case of plant life and using the
symbolism of the growth of plants, one could say that it is

68
only when the green plant, which was fed upon filthy manure,
bears fruit, a flower, or a blossom that the plant’s life grows
into a higher dimension.

This growth in the world of the beyond, or in a higher

direction, is capable of being achieved at the human level by a
conscious effort to make certain choices that are available to
man. These choices within the matrix of a religious
consciousness enable its votaries to opt for the higher or
uphill or difficult path. The making of these choices takes life
on its upward path to God. The answer to the questions of
how and why these choices have to be made is found at the
heart of religion. No wonder then that the Quran calls itself by
yet another but a well-known name, al-Furqān (literally, “the
discernment”), for the good reason that here the revelation is
geared to the master purpose of showing the difference
between good and evil, so that correct choices can be made. It
also deals with the morphology of awareness in terms of
which these choices have to be made. For every choice there
is an appropriate occasion, as for any period or epoch or
phase of life there is an appropriate destiny, which is
described traditionally as li-kulli ajalin kitāb (all that is
decreed is written). If these choices are not made at the
appropriate time as commanded under the mandate of heaven,
man will be placed in the serious difficulty of having to put
forward a greater effort to negotiate the course of his future
development—to say nothing of the suffering that would be
involved in the threatened consequences stemming from false
choices. The Quran deals at great length with this aspect
of human action and emphasizes that when lapses occur the
Mercy of God, Who is forgiver of sins and Whose grace
knows no limit, takes notice of man’s repentance and forgives
his sins. Indeed, God’s Mercy surrounds everything, man

69
included, and yet man is called upon to perform his part of
begging for forgiveness, which literally means doing tawbah.
This repentance or tawbah consists in striving to return to the
point where the deviation took place when the false choice
was made and restarting the labor of recovering the path that
is straight—the path that in fact the Quran calls “the straight
path” (al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm).

70
1. Illuminated frontispiece of the Quran, Y.Y. 913 f.4a, 1497

The Quran refers characteristically to two paths that are

available to man to choose from and stresses the desirability

71
of choosing the higher, the more difficult path. In the words
of the Quran:

Thinketh he that none hath power over him?

And he saith: I have destroyed vast wealth:

Thinketh he that none beholdeth him?

Did We not assign unto him two eyes

And a tongue and two lips,

And guide him to the parting of the mountain ways?

But he hath not attempted the Ascent—

Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Ascent is!—

(It is) to free a slave,

And to feed in the day of hunger

An orphan near of kin,

Or some poor wretch in misery,

And to be of those who believe and exhort one another to perseverance and
exhort one another to pity. (XC, 5–17)

The Human Predicament

The Quran has set forth the predicament of man resulting

from his fall from grace, which is allegorically represented in
his having been ejected from the paradisal state in
consequence of his disobedience to the Divine Command not
to approach “this Tree.” In the words of the Quran, “And We
said: Adam dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden and eat
thereof easefully where you desire; but draw not nigh this

72
Tree lest you be evildoers” (II, 35). The unending conflict
engendered by the disobedience of Satan in not bowing
before Adam and his malicious resolve to mislead man by
making evil appear as good to man has been stated in the
Quran at several places. For instance, the Quran states:

And when We said to the angels, “Bow yourselves to Adam”; so they bowed
themselves, save Iblis; he said, “Shall I bow myself unto one Thou hast
created of clay?”

He said, “What thinkest Thou? This whom Thou hast honoured above me—if
Thou deferrest me to the Day of Resurrection I shall assuredly master his
seed, save a few.”

Said He, “Depart! Those of them that follow thee—surely Gehenna shall be
your recompense, an ample recompense!

And startle whomsoever of them thou canst with thy voice; and rally against
them thy horsemen and thy foot, and share with them in their wealth and their
children, and promise them!” But Satan promises them naught, except
delusion.

“Surely over My servants thou shalt have no authority.” Thy Lord suffices as
a guardian. (XVII, 61–65)

In this contest between man and Satan, who is his avowed

enemy, the man who is righteous is not alone. It is clear from
the verses quoted above that, although God has permitted
Satan to carry out his attempt to mislead man, it is He who in
the last resort has supreme power over Satan to help man. He
has sent prophets to man who have brought guidance to him.
Thus, in effect, only those who neglect God’s guidance come
within the reach and grip of Satanic influence. But those who
live in full consciousness of God’s supreme Presence and His
ubiquitous law are protected against Satanic designs and
machinations. The righteous are supported and, indeed, it is
said in the Quran that the earth is inherited by the righteous.

73
The evil, of course, is backed by a “slinking prompter,” but
then he can be defeated by seeking refuge with the Lord.
Satan has been described as the avowed enemy of man, and
the prophets have been called warners and guides because
their historical function has been to warn man against serious
consequences of his disobedience to God’s commands. They
have attempted to guide man, despite the designs of Satan, to
make correct choices in order to be able to fulfill the Law and
to be able to earn the reward of higher life.

From what has been said so far, it is clear that man is here to
submit at the altar of the Higher Presence, and the very Law
by which his own development takes place is precisely in
accord with the Divine Nature. It is in this very perspective
that he is called by the Quran to seek his salvation:

So set thy face to the religion, a man of pure faith—God’s original upon
which He originated mankind. There is no changing God’s creation. That is
the right religion; but most men know it not. (XXX, 30)

All spiritual development for man signifies his effort to grow

in the mold in which by his own nature he has been invited to
grow. There are other verses to show the way nature bows
before God:

Have they not regarded all things that God has created casting their shadows
to the right and to the left, bowing themselves before God in all lowliness?
To God bows everything in the heavens, and every creature crawling on the
earth, and the angels. They have not waxed proud; they fear their Lord above
them, and they do what they are commanded. (XVI, 48–50)

The Love of God

Man too is here to serve his Lord. There are many pathways
that the traditional religious teaching of mankind appears to

74
recommend for securing its true growth or self-realization and
for attaining to higher levels of spiritual attainment. Among
these paths, the love of God would appear to be highlighted
by the universal religious tradition of mankind as the best
means for spiritual realization and self-development.

One of the Names of God mentioned in the Quran is

al-Wadūd, that is, one who loves:

And ask forgiveness of your Lord, then turn to him. Surely your Lord is
merciful, loving and kind. (XI, 90)

Similarly the Quran stresses the same fact:

Surely He it is Who creates first and reproduces. And He is the forgiving and
loving. (LXXXV, 13–14)

Or in another place:

Every one of them shall come to Him upon the Day of Resurrection, all
alone. Surely, those who believe and do good deeds of Righteousness—unto
them the All-Merciful shall assign love. (XIX, 96)

The Quranic view of God is that He is indescribable and that

there is nothing like unto Him and, furthermore, that no
matter what one says about Him, He is completely beyond it.
Therefore, it is difficult at first to understand how one could
love that which one has not seen and cannot imagine. For all
love presupposes the vision or sight of the beloved and the
attraction that is cast by his presence upon human sensibility.
It would appear that the Quranic view about steps to be taken
to show one’s love for God is, in the first instance, to obey
unconditionally what the Prophet says, not only because
obedience to the Prophet is obedience to God but essentially
because, to use the words of the Quran (where the Prophet is

75
made to say), “If you love God, then obey me, then God will
love you and forgive your sins” (III, 31). There are, in several
verses in the Quran, references to God loving those who do
good to others (II, 195; III, 133, 147). Furthermore, God loves
those who are patient (III, 145) and the muttaqīn, that is, those
who control themselves and do not allow false inducement to
abjure the path prescribed by God for them to follow (III, 55;
IX, 4). God
also loves those who trust in Him (III, 158) and those who are
just (V, 42). All these references show that in the last
prophetic dispensation love is preeminently reflected by deed,
which takes the form of obedience to the Lord as this may be
exhibited by the quality of higher virtue. It is to be noticed
that love is not here treated as merely a function of the act of
making a declaration of love. The test of the love of God is
obedience to the Prophet and obedience to what is prescribed
in the Divine Word. Islam, therefore, consists essentially in
conscious submission to the Law of God and that which is
commanded by His Prophet. There is also emphasis in the
Quran on dhikr Allāh (the remembrance of God), saying
prayers, and countenancing other such modes of activity in
which man, by participating in the Divine Presence, cultivates
within himself a disposition to render service for God. After
all, the Jinn and mankind, as the Quran says, have been
created only to serve Him.

76
2. The Opening of Sura VII of the Quran, Arabic MS OR.
1401, ff. 116v–117r, 14th century, Egyptian.

To Please God

The whole purpose of these teachings in the Quran is to

educate men concerning how to please God. For it is by
pleasing Him that one secures within oneself a state of being
at rest. It is in that state (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah) that man
returns to the Lord well pleased and well pleasing:

No indeed! When the earth is ground to powder, and thy Lord comes, and the
angels rank on rank, and Gehenna is brought out, upon that day man will
remember; and how shall the Reminder be for him?

He shall say, “O would that I had forwarded for my life!” Upon that day none
shall chastise as He chastises, none shall bind as He binds. “O soul at peace,

77
return unto thy Lord, well-pleased, well-pleasing! Enter thou among My
servants! Enter thou My Paradise!” (LXXXIX, 20–28)

What man does in this life is therefore reaped by him in what

the Quran calls the ākhirah, that is, in the phase of life that is
to come or the hereafter. And according to the Quran, it is life
in the hereafter that is real life, but it is a reality that can also
be experienced in this life. The whole of the Quran is full of
admonitions to the believers to treat this life seriously, for
they will all be questioned and their accounts will be audited
rigorously but impartially. This world has not been created in
vain. There is a serious purpose for which this universe and
men have been created. If men are to give a worthwhile
account of the way in which they have spent their lives, they
must allow the commandments of God to become the decisive
norms for regulating their conduct, and they must accept the
values that have been stressed in the Quran as the decisive
norms for determining the great divide between good and
evil. It is this life which, according to the Quran, is
spiritual, for it eventually leads to the realization of the
highest state of being of which man is capable. No wonder it
has been said, “By their fruits shall you find them out.” And it
is what men do consciously to serve the Lord that counts
more than anything else. For indeed the commitment of one
who is a Muslim according to the Quran is to stand for
advancing God’s Law and that of His Prophet:

Indeed, my prayer, my sacrifice, my life, and my death are for God, Who
hath no compare; this I have been commanded to accept and submit to and
this I do and I am the first of the Muslims. (VI, 162)

Meeting the Lord

78
In the final analysis the most important fact of life is man’s
meeting with his Lord; if that be so, would not this prospect
of accounting enable him to live and act in such a manner that
his life would reflect the divinely ordained injunctions? But
those who are unmindful of this ultimate meeting with the
Lord can afford to be negligent of the Divine Commandment.
Indeed, the Quran refers to this aspect of life over and over
again by pointing out that those who are defying the Divine
Law do so because they do not believe that they shall meet
their Maker. The whole discipline enjoined by Islam, whether
it be ritual prayer, almsgiving, fasting, or pilgrimage, is
ultimately a form of struggle with the lower self or the animal
self with which man is endowed by nature. This self is called
al-nafs al-ammārah, a self that according to the Quran
inclines him toward evil. But the guidance that has been
brought to him on the basis of superior knowledge, with
which prophets are blessed by reason of their learning at the
high station of wisdom to which they have been called by
destiny, enables man to reach the state of al-nafs
al-lawwāmah, the quarreling self, a self that enters a caveat
each time the lower self in man inclines him toward evil. By
the frequent choices he makes while siding with the
deliverance of al-nafs al-lawwāmah, he breaks down the
resistance of the animal impulses within him and secures their
sublimation in attaining to a state that is being called al-nafs
al-muṭma ʾinnah, the self at rest where agitation and travail
have ceased (see LXXXIX, 28). He thus enters a higher state
of being of which little can be conveyed by mere words. In
some of the utterances of those who are wayfarers on the path
of God some idea can be gained of the high watermarks of
excellence they have reached.

The Quran and the Problems of Life

79
The foregoing thoughts on the Quran and spirituality may be
understood somewhat more meaningfully if one casts a glance
upon the fundamental
distinction between answers to the perennial problem of life
that are provided by the philosophic method of enquiry (as
this is currently understood) concerning man and his destiny
and answers that are provided by the way that is based upon
the revealed Word of God, which has reached mankind
through the prophets of universal religion. The Quran affirms
eloquently this grand tradition of the revealed Word of God
from Adam down to Muḥammad and indeed makes the
Prophet of God say that he has come to verify and affirm all
the preexisting religious revelations that have been brought to
mankind by earlier prophets. The essential difference between
the view of modern philosophy about man and his destiny and
that of religion is that the philosophical view is based on
reason when it works upon and elaborates the data furnished
to it by man’s senses and his sensibility. Religion, however,
calls upon man to surrender, but not at the altar of reason nor
again at the altar of what may be called natural duties—much
less at the altar of the cravings of the animal self. Islam,
which is a “natural religion” in a more fundamental sense
than “the natural theology” prevalent in the modern world,
confirms the validity of reason but without surrendering it to
the senses. Rather, Islam admits the competence of human
reason to comprehend the meaning of the revealed Word of
God. It declares that human reason is capable of development
and that the more it is developed in the service of
understanding religious truths, the more it will accept
religious imperatives as a matter of course. Indeed, Islam
claims that man has to be educated to adhere to the cardinal
claims of his own mental makeup, his spiritual yearnings. He
is not to take a position against the demands that his nature

80
makes upon them. The nature of man has been patterned by
God on fiṭrat Allāh, that is—if the expression be
permitted—on “God’s own nature,” and the religious
dispensation that the Quran calls al-dīn al-qayyim, the right
religion, does not intend to alter that human nature. The
following Quranic verse has already been reproduced the way
Arthur J. Arberry has translated it; however, since it is
somewhat untranslatable, here is another attempt, that of
Mohammed M. Pickthall, at articulating this great truth:

So set thy purpose (O Muhammad) for religion as a man by nature

upright—the nature (framed) of Allah, in which He hath created man. There
is no altering (the laws of) Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but
most men know not. (XXX, 30)

Any religion that claims to be true must present as an

indelible mark the claim that its teachings are in accord with
human nature. It is true that the prophets of universal religion
demanded from their people faith in whatever teachings they
had brought. The only mistake that arose in the history
of religion in relation to their teachings was that unthinking
people felt that this demand of having faith entailed an
immediate understanding of religious injunctions or a direct
and instantaneous realization of the truth that the prophets had
brought. This, however, was not the demand. All that was
solicited was belief in what was revealed, the awareness that
the truth of the Word of God would come if the belief was
genuine and was followed by righteous conduct. When Adam
was being created, the angels had said that “when created he
will spill blood and spread mischief in the land,” to which
God had replied “I know what you do not know” (II, 30).
What God knew was that, with a divinely implanted source of
knowledge in the soul of man (suggested by the words “I
have breathed My spirit into Adam,” XV, 29), man would be

81
able to acquire knowledge to see the value of righteous
conduct and would refrain from being disobedient to God’s
commands. God taught the names of all things to Adam and
educated him to name things that angels could not name. This
process of acquiring knowledge about the nature of things
invested man with cognitive ability to discriminate between
right and wrong. It enabled man to realize full knowledge of
both a unitive and an analytical kind even beyond the
knowledge of the angels. Spirituality means, in fact, the
attainment of higher levels of being in which this knowledge
is fully realized in conformity with man’s destiny on earth.
Indeed, the fact that man is here on earth to realize that higher
state of being has been asserted by the revealed Word of God.
That is what the Quran calls dhālika taqdīr al-ʿazīz al-ʿalīm
(that is the ordaining of the All-mighty, the All-knowing).

82
3. Ornamental title-page of a Quran in seven volumes, written
and illustrated for Rukn ad-Din Baybars, afterwards Sultan
Baybars 11, Arabic MS Add. 22406, f. 1b, Ad 1304,
Egyptian.

83
What is called the Ṭarīqah or the esoteric path in the mystical
tradition of Islam is not opposed to the Sharīʿah, that is, the
Divine Law, but its discipline is designed to make human
nature accept that Law as a part of its own inner demand. This
is possible because God has breathed His Spirit into Adam, as
is suggested by the words nafakhtu fīhi min rūḥī (I have
breathed My spirit into him). Thereby the inner resources of
man, after obedience is shown by him to the teaching of
universal religion, enable him to have access to progressively
higher levels of knowledge while helping him to have an
ever-widening vision. The higher one ascends a mountain, the
farther one sees, says Ghazzālī. When one takes his stand
firmly upon the straight path, soon, very soon, a time comes
when what was accepted on faith is discovered to be a truth
that can be realized in principle. Thus, a man who witnesses
the awakening of his inner resources also witnesses within
himself, by a gift of direct awareness, the true meaning of
religious truths that he had earlier accepted on premises of
faith. It is this process that is capable of securing the spiritual
development of man. Spirituality has no other meaning and it
has no other content apart from this link that man
has with this process of realizing the truth of the revealed
Word of God. The process of accepting on faith the religious
truth is an essential prerequisite for securing the awakening of
inner powers and hidden resources of man in order to be able
to witness the higher truths in terms of experience.

After the Quran came to mankind, the age of new revelations

came to an end. What began was the age of realization of the
age-old truths received through the last revelation, through
the Quran whose outer form and inner meaning, content and
sound, laws and “presence” are all basic to Islamic spirituality
and have acted over the centuries as the fundamental source

84
of all that constitutes spirituality in its Muḥammadan form
and in the world created and molded by the Quranic
revelation.

85
86
 3

Traditional Esoteric Commentaries on the Quran

ABDURRAHMAN HABIL

Nature of the Esoteric Commentaries

WHEN QURANIC COMMENTARIES ARE MENTIONED,

they are usually associated in our minds with specialized,
voluminous works of tafsīr, or exegesis, with their
comprehensive interpretative framework covering the whole
Quran starting from its first verse to the last. For convenient
reasons we tend to ignore the fact that almost every work that
deals with the religion of Islam involves, directly or
indirectly, a certain understanding of the Quran and certain
interpretations of particular Quranic verses. This is simply
due to the obvious fact that the whole Islamic religion
revolves around this Book. Sometimes even an incidental
reference to a verse indicates an implicit, particular
interpretation of it. This applies especially to Islamic
esotericism. After all is said and done, one comes to the
conclusion that the whole Islamic esoteric tradition is
essentially an esoteric commentary upon the Quran. Quranic
esoteric commentaries, therefore, range from works written
for the specific purpose of esoteric commentary to comments
scattered throughout all types of Islamic esoteric works.
Moreover, the first kind—that is, commentaries in the strict
sense—should not be taken as only those that cover the whole
of the Quran. They include also commentaries upon one

87
single verse and commentaries upon one sura or group of
suras, sometimes very short ones. In addition, many of the
commentaries that cover the whole of the Quran are only
based on a “reading” of the whole Quran for the purpose of
commentary, without giving a systematic, verse-by-verse
interpretation of the totality of the sacred Book. Many
esoteric interpretations still survive in the form of oral
tradition coming down from one generation to another, and
many are still in manuscript form and have not as yet been
subjected to
detailed study. The study of esoteric commentaries is an
unexplored, varied, and immense field. In the present survey
we shall, of necessity, mention only important authors and
works known to contemporary scholarship, works that are far
from few in number.

Periods of Esoteric Commentaries

Our task is to discuss the major historical manifestations of

the esoteric commentary tradition and to offer descriptions of
the process of interpretation and the common features in the
works involved. To facilitate the discussion, a historical
chronology will be followed whenever possible, but certain
discernible phenomena will necessarily be considered
independently of the historical context. We observe the
following periods: (1) the earliest period, in which all the
roots of the tradition are to be found; (2) a period coinciding
with the time when the early Sufi commentaries were written;
(3) the Twelve-Imam Shīʿite period, when the center of
Quranic esoteric commentary shifts to Persia; (4) the period
of the great classical Sufi commentaries; and (5) the
contemporary period. We must also provide an independent
account of the Ismāʿīlī commentary heritage, which parallels

88
the periods of the central tradition. We should bear in mind,
however, that this historical division, perhaps somewhat
arbitrary, is followed only for reasons of convenience and to
emphasize the importance of periods of great achievement.
All manifestations of the tradition are deeply rooted in the
earliest beginnings, and the later periods possess, historically
and essentially, a continuous relation with the earlier periods.

The Language of Symbolism

Esoteric commentaries upon the Quran are essentially united

through the principle of symbolism, as understood in its full,
traditional sense. Indeed, symbolism serves as the key word
to all of them, so that they all may also be called “symbolic
commentaries.” The process of symbolic, esoteric
interpretation is called taʾwīl, which technically means
symbolic, spiritual hermeneutics.1 Etymologically, however,
it means to take something back to its awwal, that is,
beginning or origin; hence, to take or to follow symbols back
to the origin they symbolize. Taʾwīl applies to all kinds of
symbols, whether in nature, in the world of man, or in the text
of the revelation. The Quran itself applies the word āyāt,
signs or portents, to its own verses as well as to objects and
events within the world of nature and the soul of man.

As far as the Quran is concerned, esoteric commentators have

usually
referred to four types, or layers, of symbolism and,
consequently, of taʾwīl. First, the Quran, the Word of God, is
as a whole the most direct symbol of the spiritual world. It
embodies in the form of its letters and sounds “a concrete
active spiritual presence”2 that can lead directly to realization.
The effect of the totality of the Quran on this first level of

89
symbolism does not necessarily coincide with particular
interpretations of individual Quranic verses found in esoteric
commentaries. The ultimate goal of taʾwīl at this stage is
realization, through interiorization of the Divine Essence of
the Quran, and not the writing of commentaries. To be
precise, esoteric commentaries, with regard to this first sense,
are not taʾwīl but its indirect results. They are attempts to
express in the language of man the effects of the spiritual,
human-Quranic-Divine experience, as it appears narrowly
limited and fragmented when transferred to the plane of
writing and interpretation of individual verses. After all, not
all who read the Quran as a means of realization have
necessarily left us commentaries, and we know that many
Muslims who do not know Arabic do feel the Divine Presence
in the Quran. However, it is mainly from this symbolic
characteristic of the Quran as a whole that the inspirational
nature of esoteric commentaries emerges. They are the fruit of
an immediate spiritual experience that inspired the apparently
isolated interpretations of individual Quranic verses,
necessarily confined to the limits of language and ordinary
logic and the requirements of expositional writing.

The second type of symbolism found in the Quran is its

numerous references to many objective symbols found in the
outside natural world and within the human being. Here the
Quranic symbolism meets and contains the other two major
kinds of symbolism mentioned in the beginning, that is, the
macrocosmic symbols in the universe and symbols in the
microcosmic world of man. The sky, the sun, the moon, the
stars, the sea, the birds, the trees, and the heart of man are
only a few of the many symbols found in the Quran. These
are symbols in the sense that they lead back to the higher
realities they symbolize and participate in them independently

90
of any choice or agreement on our part. They are not
conventional or literary symbols, but are so natural and
objective that they exist whether we wanted them to exist or
not, whether we are aware of them or not. Consequently,
esoteric commentaries all abound in references to this type of
symbol, and their meanings are elucidated through readings
of the Quran as well as through direct meditation upon the
outside and inside worlds.

The third layer of Quranic symbolism concerns particular

Quranic symbols. When, for instance, the prophet Moses is in
the sacred valley of ṭuwā and is ordered by God to take off his
sandals (XX, 12), esoteric commentators
usually interpret this as relating to the body and the soul, or
attachment to both this world and the next. However, the
sandals here are not a natural symbol, since they are
man-made and do not exist in the outside world independent
of man’s actions. Also among the symbols particular to the
Quran are “the pen” (al-Qalam) and “the tablet” (al-Lawḥ),
although they are direct allusions to the masculine and
feminine principles in the natural world, which are in turn
objective, universal symbols of higher cosmic principles. All
the levels of the symbolic structure of the Quran are,
therefore, intrinsically tied to one another.

Finally, in addition to the totality of the Book as a symbol and

its individual words as universal or particular symbols, the
symbolism in the very letters of which the words and the
whole Book are composed has been unraveled by the esoteric
commentators. Here they focus especially on the muqaṭṭaʿāt,
or fawātiḥ al-suwar, the letters of the Arabic alphabet found
detached at the beginning of some Quranic suras. It is
especially the alif (the Arabic equivalent of the letter a) that

91
has seized the attention of esoteric commentators, since it is
actually the first letter of the alphabet and the first of the
“detached letters” of the Quran and appears at the opening of
the second sura (The Cow), the longest sura in the Quran.
Traditional esoteric commentators see in it a symbol of the
One—the Sufficient by Itself that stands independent from
all, yet is the Origin of all. Around the symbolic interpretation
of al-muqaṭṭaʿāt grew the esoteric, traditional science of
al-jafr, dealing with the numerical symbolism of all the letters
of the alphabet, numbers themselves being considered in their
symbolic significance.

The elements of this symbolic reading of the Quran are to be

found in the Quran itself. It is, indeed, no exaggeration to say
that the principles of esoteric, symbolic commentary upon the
Quran are embodied in the Quran. This being so, the Quran is,
in a sense, the first and, naturally, the best commentary upon
itself. The famous exegetical rule that a part of the Quran
explains another (al-Qurʾān yufassiru baʿḍuhu baʿḍan) cannot
be limited to the exoterical level but applies to the esoteric as
well. Space does not permit an elaboration of this point, and
only a few Quranic verses can be mentioned (emphasis
added):3

And in the earth are portents for those whose faith is sure. And (also) in
yourselves. Can you then not see? And in the heaven is your providence and
that which you are promised. (LI, 20–22)

Glory be to Him who created all the pairs, of that which the earth grows, and
of themselves, and of that which they know not (XXXVI, 36)

God it is who has created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof.
(LVI, 12)

92
There is not a crawling creature in the earth, nor a bird flying on two wings,
but they are species (subdivided) like you. (VI, 38)

He has made for you pairs from among yourselves, and of the cattle also
pairs. (XLII, 11)

From these few verses the correspondence that the Quran

establishes between the various aspects of nature and between
nature as a whole, man, and the higher spiritual realities is
quite clear. What is below corresponds to other things below;
what is below in general corresponds to “higher” realities
“above”; and what is “above” is only a symbol of the interior
or the bāṭin.

Anyone familiar with the synthetic quality of the Arabic

language would know upon a reading of the Quran how it
makes full use of this advantage. For example, one Arabic
term can denote (apparently) different realities, which
conveys the message that sensible realities are but reflections
of realities belonging to higher (inner) levels of the hierarchy
of being. The reader may compare the usage of terms like
al-samāʾ (heaven) in II, 22 and LXVII, 16–17; al-kitāb (the
book) in LVI, 77–79; X, 94; XI, 17 and V, 48; and Umm
al-kitāb (the mother [origin] of the book) in XLIII, 4 and III,
7.

The Sunnah and Esoteric Commentaries

After the Quran, the second source of esoteric commentary is

the Sunnah, the Ḥadīth of the Prophet, with its two main
branches—prophetic tradition (Ḥadīth nabawī) and sacred
tradition (Ḥadīth qudsī). As a matter of fact, just as there are
esoteric commentaries on the Quran, there are also esoteric
commentaries on the Ḥadīth, a point that is usually

93
overlooked. These commentaries find in the Ḥadīth, in
addition to direct interpretations of Quranic verses, the very
principles of symbolism found in the Quran and applied in
later Quranic commentaries. Some of the works to which we
shall refer later as esoteric commentaries upon the Quran,
such as the Mishkāt al-anwār of al-Ghazzālī, and the Fuṣūṣ of
Ibn ʿArabī, are in fact commentaries on both the Quran and
the Ḥadīth.4 Similarly, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī’s Laṭāʾif
al-minan contains, as we shall see, Quranic interpretations of
Abuʾl-ʿAbbās al-Mursī and also a section devoted to
al-Mursī’s interpretations of certain ḥadīths.5 After all, the
point of departure for all esoteric Quranic commentaries has
always been the famous tradition that “the Quran has an
outward and inward dimension,” a saying attributed to the
Prophet with some variations.

It should, however, be added that for Shīʿite Muslims the

concept of
Ḥadīth includes, in addition to the traditions of the Prophet,
those transmitted from the Imams, and this leads to the third
source of Quranic esoteric commentary in its early period.
Among the companions of the Prophet, ʿAbd Allāh ibn
ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib are
the foremost as far as tafsīr in general is concerned. As for
taʾwīl, some interpretations of “the detached letters” are
attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās, whose importance has already been
mentioned.6 Indeed, many of the commentary traditions
attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās, either on his own authority or
connected to the Prophet, turn out, upon careful reading, to be
highly symbolic.7 If we consider the fact that a great number
of these sayings are included in the exoteric commentaries
themselves, especially those concerned with the tafsīr
biʾl-maʾthūr (interpretation according to traditions), we

94
realize how deeply esotericism penetrates the whole
commentary tradition. To Ibn Masʿūd also is often
attributed—sometimes on his own authority and sometimes as
transmitted from the Prophet—the previously mentioned
tradition stating that the Quran has both outward and inward
aspects, a tradition whose importance in the history of
esoteric commentaries could not be rivaled.8

The Transmission of the Science of Commentary and Its

Subsequent History

Ibn ʿAbbās is reported to have said: “What I took from the

interpretation of the Quran is from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib,” and
Ibn Masʿūd states that “ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib has from [the
Quran] both the outward and the inward.”9 Two of the three
major figures thereby recognize the third as the most
knowledgeable in exegesis in general and esoteric
hermeneutics in particular. In fact, both the interpretations of
“the detached letters” attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās and the
outward-inward tradition attributed to Ibn Masʿūd are
simultaneously attributed to ʿAlī.10 Several other sayings by
him also reveal the esoteric nature of the Quran and his own
esoteric understanding of it.11

One of the important chains of transmission from ʿAlī, as far

as commentary is concerned, comes down through his son
al-Ḥusayn to the latter’s son, ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.12 Zayn
al-ʿĀbidīn’s son, Muḥammad al-Bāqir, the fifth Imam, is the
transmitter of commentary from his father as well as a
prominent spiritual commentator in his own right. His
commentary and that of his son, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth
Imam, were collected between the late third/ninth century and
the early fourth/tenth century in a book that still survives to

95
the present day as one of the most important Twelve-Imam
Shīʿite commentaries.13 But it was al-Ṣādiq who played the
most important
role in the whole history of esoteric commentaries upon the
Quran in both its Shīʿite and Sufi facets. His influence on
later Shīʿite tafsīrs and on all aspects of the religious life in
Shīʿsm needs no demonstration. In regard to Sufism, suffice it
here to point out that a commentary of al-Ṣādiq was known to
the Sufis at least as early as the time of Dhuʾl-Nūn al-Miṣrī
(ca. 180/796–245/860), who made an edition of it.14
Dhuʾl-Nūn, in his turn, is considered the “spiritual forebear”
of Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), the author of the oldest
continuous Sufi commentary on the Quran.15 Despite
variations in content, the absence in al-Tustarī’s work of
references to al-Ṣādiq,16 and the usual differences between
Sunnite and Shīʿite works, it has been pointed out that both
tafsīrs are connected in their principles and methods of
commentary.17

A second important channel through which al-Ṣādiq’s

commentary found its way early into Sufi commentaries is
another Sufi recension of it made by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (al-Baghdādī)
(d. 309/921), who included it in a commentary of his own,
which was later incorporated into the Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr (The
Realities of Quranic Interpretation) of al-Sulamī (d. 412/
1021).18 This work is the second oldest Sufi compilation of
tafsīr after al-Tustarī’s. The authenticity of al-Ṣādiq’s tafsīr as
it appears in Ibn ʿAṭā’s edition incorporated by al-Sulamī, or
at least the fact that it came from an early Shīʿite source, is
confirmed by the existence of another Shīʿite compilation of
it made by Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nuʿmānī (d. 328/940).
Despite the (understandable) absence, in Ibn ʿAṭā’s edition, of
the social and political Shīʿite outlook found in that of

96
al-Nuʿmānī and also important variations in regard to
content—perhaps only indicating different chains of
transmission—comparison of the two editions has indicated
that “we are in the presence of one work, having the same
aspiration, same style, and same spiritual content,” not to
mention “sentences which are literally the same.”19 In fact,
the influence of al-Ṣādiq’s commentary on the Sufis was not
limited to exegetical principles, methods, and content; this
commentary went beyond the field of tafsīr proper in its
elaboration of the esoteric science of al-jafr, developed at the
hands of al-Ṣādiq. This commentary influenced the very
content and vocabulary of Sufi doctrine and perhaps even the
method of Sufi experience itself.20 One may safely conclude,
however, that the earliest major sources of esoteric
commentary upon the Quran are the Sacred Book itself and
the tradition of the Prophet and the companions, especially
ʿAlī, together with the latter’s descendants.21

The second period of esoteric commentary upon the Quran

may be in its turn divided into three minor periods. The first
starts in the third/ninth century with the appearance of the
earliest Sufi commentators. We have
already seen that the tafsīr of al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) is the
oldest continuous Sufi commentary upon the Quran in the
sense that it was the first Sufi compilation with the aim of
presenting orderly interpretations of Quranic (although
selected) verses following the traditional division of the
Quran into consecutive suras and verses. A contemporary of
al-Tustarī is al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 285/898), who,
although he does not appear to be a commentator in the strict
sense like al-Tustarī, made a great contribution to the esoteric
commentary tradition through his linguistic study of Quranic
terms supported by an analysis of spiritual experience. By use

97
of the psychological analysis of the different actions denoted
by different technical terms, he established the impossibility
of “synonymy” (al-tarāduf, or al-naẓāʾir) in Arabic and the
Quran. If two words or more are said to have the same
meaning, al-Tirmidhī draws the actions corresponding to each
word, finds them psychologically different, and thus finds
each word to be different from the other in its psychological
nuances. Since two words cannot have the same meaning, it
follows in a subtle manner that each word has different shades
of meaning, or different aspects (wujūh), related to each other
through a basic sense from which they originally derive.
These senses are the spiritual states (aḥwāl) issuing from a
basic action and emanating in a hierarchical order from unity
to multiplicity.22 The tremendous implications of this
principle for the concept of the plurality of meanings of the
Quranic word, upon which all esoteric commentaries are
based, need no further demonstration.

Also living in the late third/ninth century and early fourth/

tenth century were three other Sufi figures who were
commentators as well. These are the famous al-Junayd (d.
298/910), al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922) and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ (d. 309/921).
Their interpretations have reached us in the Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr
of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), whose
importance in this respect can hardly be overrated. While
al-Tustarī’s commentary is not purely esoteric, since it
includes exoteric interpretations as well, the Ḥaqāʾiq of
al-Sulamī is devoted exclusively to esoteric Quranic
interpretations. It is, moreover, a collection selected from the
sayings of almost one hundred authorities, a number that
reveals the expansion that the tradition had reached by that
time as well as its deep-rootedness in early Islamic times.
Among those who are quoted by al-Sulamī, in addition to

98
al-Ṣādiq, Dhuʾl-Nūn, al-Tustarī, and the three figures just
mentioned, are al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), Abū Saʿīd
al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899), Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī (d. 320/910) and
Abū Bakr al-Shiblī (d. 334/945).23 Although this very
valuable work remains unpublished, its items related to
al-Ṣādiq have been edited and those related to al-Ḥallāj have
been reproduced in available publications.24

Just as al-Sulamī intended, his compilation of exclusively

esoteric Quranic interpretations marked the independence of
esoteric commentaries from the general science of exegesis.
From then on, continuous and often voluminous esoteric
commentaries were incessantly written, up to the present day.
Moreover, although many esoteric commentators were to
continue, like al-Tustarī, to deal more or less with exoteric
interpretations in their commentaries, the commentaries
would always have their own character and would demand to
be treated as distinct from exoteric commentaries proper.

A second or middle era within the stage of great Sufi

commentaries was inaugurated by the appearance of Laṭāʾif
al-ishārāt (The Subtle Quranic Allusions) (finished 434 A.H.)
of Abu’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), which is, after
al-Tustarī’s and al-Sulamī’s, the third oldest work among the
existent continuous Sufi commentaries.25 It is interesting to
add that al-Qushayrī is also credited with another great
exoteric commentary devoted to linguistic, legal, and
historical matters, and recognized as “one of the best” in its
own class.26 The existence of this exoteric work along with
its esoteric counterpart by the same author emphasizes the
distinctness of each type of commentary. It also stands as
clear proof that a true esoteric commentator is also a master
of outward exegesis.

99
The author of the first Persian Sufi commentary upon the
Quran, Khwājah ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī of Herat (d. 481/1089),
was a contemporary of al-Qushayrī. A Ḥanbalite Sufi,27 he
stands as an even clearer proof that genuine esoteric
commentary has never meant disrespect to the letter of the
Quran but rather the real respect due it. Al-Anṣārī’s
commentary, however, stopped at the sixty-seventh verse of
the thirty-eighth sura and reached us, completed and greatly
amplified, only in the Kashf al-asrār (The Uncovering of the
Secrets), the voluminous Persian commentary by his disciple
Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī (d. 520/1126).28 This second era in
the stage of great Sufi commentaries is dominated by two
great names. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111) wrote an
immense, forty-volume commentary called Yāqūt al-taʾwīl
(The Ruby of Spiritual Hermeneutics), which seems to have
been lost.29 However, we still have the Mishkāt al-anwār
(The Niche of Lights), alluded to above,30 in which
al-Ghazzālī gives interpretations of two Quranic verses, the
Verse of Light (XXIV, 35) and the Verse of Darkness (XXIV,
40), together with the Seventy Thousand Veils ḥadīth. We
still have also the famous Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The Revival of
Religious Sciences), which contains many interpretations of
individual verses along with a chapter on interpretation (and
recitation) of the Quran,31 in which the author has summed
up the general theory of esoteric commentary as a necessary
complement of exoteric interpretations. The second great
name is Rūzbihān Baqlī (d. 606/1209), author of ʿArāʾis
al-bayān (The Brides of Elucidation).32 This gnostic
commentary, perhaps preceded in its crystallized gnostic
outlook only partly by the work of Maybudī, stands at the end
of the era that had started with al-Qushayrī and at the
beginning of the era of the purely gnostic Sufi commentaries
of the seventh and eighth centuries. In addition to Baqlī’s own

100
interpretations, this commentary contains many quotations
from previous works, especially al-Sulamī’s and
al-Qushayrī’s: it is the fruit of the whole tradition preceding it
and the forebear of a chain of purely gnostic commentaries.

The time extending from the late sixth/twelfth century to the

first half of the eighth/fourteenth century is marked by the
appearance and crystallization of two eminent schools of
Sufism, which are, at the same time, two schools of esoteric
commentary. These are the Central Asian school of Najm
al-Dīn Kubrā and the school of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn
ʿArabī. Kubrā (d. 618/1221) left his commentary, ʿAyn
al-ḥayāh (The Fountainhead of Life), unfinished, and it did
not go beyond the fifth sura of the Quran. His disciple Najm
al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 654/1256) wanted to complete it, but in the
same way that Maybudī did for al-Anṣārī’s commentary, that
is, by embodying it in a new one, entitled Baḥr al-ḥaqāʾiq
(The Ocean of Realities), beginning again from the first sura.
But Rāzī was prevented by death from going beyond the
eighteenth verse of the fifty-first sura. A third member of the
school, ʿAlāʾ al-Dawlah Simnānī (d. 736/1336) completed
Rāzī’s work, this time to the end. He added an introduction
and a new interpretation of his own of the first sura; he started
from the fifty-second sura without finishing Rāzī’s
interpretation of the fifty-first.33 It is the work of the third,
Simnānī, that represents the peak in this school’s
hermeneutics. Although this work, like its two predecessors,
remains unpublished, it is described to us as “interiorization
of the sense of the Quranic Revelation to its ultimate esoteric
depths.”34

Many exegetical works of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), including

a monumental commentary, have not yet been published.35

101
However, esoteric interpretations of the Quran penetrate the
whole work of Ibn ʿArabī, especially the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam,
alluded to before, which is an indirect commentary on the
Quran and the Hadīth. A close disciple and stepson of Ibn
ʿArabī, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), also devoted a
whole book to the interpretation of the first, seven-verse sura
of the Quran.36 Another outstanding member and
commentator of this school was ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī
(d. 730/1330), whose career as a commentator has been
eclipsed by the publication, at least three times, of his own
commentary under the
name of his spiritual forebear, Ibn ʿArabī.37 The work of
al-Kāshānī, a Shīʿite Sufi, is one of the several points where
the Shīʿite and Sufi commentary traditions meet each other. It
is also an indication that by this time the center of esoteric,
gnostic commentary had begun to shift to the Shīʿite world.

Before we leave the Sufi scene for a while, there are still two
developments that deserve to be mentioned. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī
(d. 672/1273) was a friend and close associate of Ṣadr al-Dīn
al-Qūnawī and was thus related to the school of Ibn ʿArabī.
However, Rūmī remains an independent gnostic of
outstanding quality and a unique phenomenon in the whole
tradition of esoteric commentaries. His monumental poetical
work, the Mathnawī,38 is considered to be in essence “a vast
esoteric commentary upon the Quran” in Persian verse.39 This
is confirmed by statements of Rūmī himself, by what we
know of his deep knowledge of the Quranic sciences and the
commentaries existing in his time, and by the fact that some
six thousand verses of the Mathnawī—and the Dīwān, another
work of Rūmī—were found to be “practically direct
translations of Quranic verses into Persian poetry.”40 It
remains to be pointed out that the Shādhilī order, a Sufi order

102
that flourished in the seventh/thirteenth century, had also
made a contribution to the commentary tradition. A very few
oral Quranic interpretations of Abuʾl-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī, the
founder of the order (d. 657/1258), and more interpretations
of his successor, Abuʾl-ʿAbbās al-Mursī (d. 686/1287), were
preserved by the third Shādhilī shaykh, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh
al-Iskandarī (d. 709/1309).41 Judged by their quality, these
few, concise interpretations represent yet another major facet
of Sufi Quranic commentary in its golden period.

Thus far we have seen esoteric commentaries in their early,

formative period and in their second period, marked by the
early classical Sufi commentaries. We turn now to a great
Shīʿite commentary movement, which is, however, closely
connected to the preceding two. Our historical division of the
subject is very relative, and the very aspect now under
discussion, although crystallized after the middle of the
eighth/fourteenth century, the time of the last great Sufi
commentaries of al-Kāshānī and Simnānī, finds its roots in a
very early stage, that of the Imams and their hermeneutical
teachings. In addition to finding its direct roots in the Imams,
this Shīʿite movement also benefited from previous Sufi
commentaries and from the works of two other figures of the
fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries. They are Abū ʿAlī
ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) and Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā
al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), who precede in time most of the
personalities already mentioned and must therefore be
discussed before going into Shīʿite commentaries.

The Philosophers and Their Commentaries

The importance of Ibn Sīnā and Suhrawardī in this respect is

due to two facts. In general, the philosophy of Ibn Sīnā as

103
interpreted by Suhrawardī, together with the gnostic doctrines
of Ibn ʿArabī, was synthesized with Shīʿite theology in the
very period of Shīʿite commentaries that is under discussion.
This achievement in its turn had its impact upon
contemporary Shīʿite commentaries. But, in particular, both
Ibn Sīnā and Suhrawardī dealt directly with Quranic
interpretation, and it was particularly this tradition of
combining philosophy with Quranic interpretation that was
carried on in the Shīʿite commentaries of this period.

The fact that there were Islamic philosophers who wrote

commentaries upon the Quran shows the importance of the
Quran and especially its esoteric understanding as a source of
inspiration for Islamic philosophy.42 It is to this point that the
often-repeated question of the relationship between faith and
reason in Islamic philosophy is directly connected.43
Moreover, beyond the faith-and-reason question, the esoteric
tendency in Islamic philosophy is best revealed by a study of
the Quranic esoteric commentaries written by Islamic
philosophers, who in this respect should rather be called
“theosophers,” or ḥukamāʾ. Such commentaries, however,
should be judged by their quality and by the significance of
their very existence, for they are not huge volumes. This is
due to the particular specialty of the authors and to the fact
that the process was slow in the beginning and reached its
peak only after a few centuries, as we shall later see.

Interpretations of the Quran are found in the works of Islamic

philosophers at least as early as the late third/ninth century
and the first half of the fourth/tenth century, the time of Abū
Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), who was a contemporary of
al-Tustarī.44 Ibn Sīnā, who lived in the fourth/tenth and fifth/
eleventh centuries, also left us commentaries on at least the

104
short, but highly significant, last three Quranic suras, the
celebrated Verse of Light, and a few other Quranic verses.45
But perhaps the most significant of his writings in this domain
is the Nayrūziyyah epistle, “on the meaning of the letters of
the alphabet at the beginning of some Quranic suras.”46 This
last work is based heavily on the tradition of esoteric
commentaries upon the Quran in its symbolic treatment of the
“detached letters,” cultivated a long time before Ibn Sīnā.47
After Ibn Sīnā we have another attempt to combine
philosophy with Quranic interpretation by Shaykh al-ishrāq
al-Suhrawardī, more strictly “a theosopher” (ḥakīm) than a
philosopher in the ordinary sense. He went a step further by
seeking support in the Quran for his ideas, quoting Quranic
verses in the context of his theosophical
discussions.48 In addition to their significance in themselves,
these references to Quranic verses obviously involved
hermeneutic interpretations of the Sacred Text.

The theosophy of Suhrawardī and his effort to remove the

barriers between the two Islamic traditions of philosophy and
Quranic commentary were to find an echo in Shīʿite Persia.
The adoption by Shīʿism of his theosophy of “Illumination”
and his interpretations of the “esoteric” Ibn Sīnā, together
with the Sufi gnostic doctrines of Ibn ʿArabī, were to result in
a great intellectual movement represented by a group of
ḥukamāʾ, or sages, who were at the same time Quranic
commentators.49

Shīʿite Commentaries

The historical and doctrinal importance of the esoteric

interpretation of the Quran is further emphasized by the fact
that the insistence upon the necessity of this interpretation and

105
the question of the authority to which it should be entrusted
are two of the main points by which Shīʿism has distinguished
itself from Sunni Islam.50 This is especially the case in the
two major branches of Twelve-Imam Shīʿism and Ismāʿīlism,
which concern us here. The necessity of the existence of an
esoteric meaning in the Quran is an idea held by both Shīʿism
and Sufism, which exists mostly in the Sunni world. In the
final analysis, however, Sufism transcends the Sunni–Shīʿite
dichotomy. It is the second point, that is, the necessity of the
presence of legitimate authority, which further characterizes
Shīʿism and its view of Quranic exegesis.

The interpretation of the Quran for the Shīʿites is essentially

the exclusive function of the Imams. They are the successors
of the Prophet, to whom the Noble Book was revealed and its
full understanding given. This does not mean, however, that a
qualified Shīʿite scholar cannot contribute to the field of
commentary. Anyone who is qualified, most of all spiritually,
may do so. But being “spiritually qualified” is, in fact,
another way of saying that the interpreter has gained “inner
contact” with the Imams, represented, in the case of
Twelve-Imam Shīʿism, by the twelfth and last Imam, the
Mahdī.51 The importance of the bāṭin (inward) of the Quran,
on the one hand, and the Imams as its interpreters in their
other cosmic, initiatic, and social functions, on the other, have
bestowed upon Shīʿism an inherent esoteric tone, even in its
apparently exoteric dimensions.52 This trait applies in
particular to the Shīʿite exoteric commentaries upon the
Quran. A person who reads the apparently exoteric
commentaries of al-Ṭūsī and al-Tabarsī, for example, has to
grasp their underlying esoteric nature by the
very fact of their being Shīʿite and by their heavy reliance
upon the sayings of the Imams.53

106
To come back to the Shīʿite theosophers-commentators in the
period starting in the eighth/fourteenth century, the first of
these figures who should be mentioned is Ḥaydar Āmulī (d.
after 794/1392). He wrote a gnostic commentary, in seven
large volumes, which is still in manuscript. In it he gave not
only verse-by-verse interpretations but also a general theory
of the principles and rules of spiritual hermeneutics.54 A
generation later Ṣāʾin al-Dīn ʿAlī Iṣfahānī (d. 830/1427)
composed an epistle, still unpublished, in which he focused
on one short Quranic verse, “The hour drew nigh and the
moon was rent in twain” (LIV, 1), going deeply in his
interiorization of the Quran.55 But it was at the hands of Ṣadr
al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 1050/1640), also known as Mullā Ṣadrā,
that the synthesis between the three Islamic intellectual
currents of Sufi gnosis, philosophy, or theosophy, and Shīʿite
theology was ultimately achieved, and was directly reflected
in the field of esoteric commentary on the Quran. In the same
way that Rūmī was a unique phenomenon among Islamic
poets. Mullā Ṣadrā of Shiraz is considered to hold “a unique
distinction among Islamic philosophers.”56 The Quran was
persistently present in the minds and souls of these two when
they composed works of poetry or philosophy. In the case of
Mullā Ṣadrā, the influence of the Quran did not stop with
direct quotations from the Sacred Text throughout the whole
of his writings. It extended to major contributions to the field
of direct commentary and made him “a major Quranic
commentator in his own right, ranking with the foremost
commentators in Islamic history.”57 Mullā Ṣadrā is
considered to be “perhaps the greatest Islamic philosopher”;
at the same time, “without the direct influence of the Quran
his writings would not be conceivable.”58 This is further
evidence of the importance of the Quran and its
understanding in the intellectual history of Islam.

107
A contemporary of Mullā Ṣadrā, Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlawī, also
wrote in Persian a commentary on different Quranic chapters,
which is considered to be one of the outstanding gnostic,
theosophical commentaries in the Shīʿite world.59
Unfortunately it too remains unpublished. Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ
al-Kāshānī (d. ca. 1090/1680), a disciple and stepson of Mullā
Ṣadrā, likewise wrote a commentary biʿl-maʾthūr (according
to traditions), which is mainly based on traditions attributed to
the Imams.60 The traditions have continued in the
Twelve-Imam Shīʿite world up to the present time. Before
going any further into the modern period, it is necessary to
consider briefly another Shīʿite tradition, which had its
historical roots in a far earlier era.

We have seen that the Shīʿite view of tafsīr is based on the

belief in the existence of an interior meaning in the Quran and
the Imams as the
interpreters of this meaning. When it comes to Ismāʿīlism,
there is to be found an even greater emphasis on both
principles. It is precisely because of the heavy emphasis on
the inward aspect (bāṭin) of the Quran—as opposed to its
ẓāhir, or exoteric, meaning—that the Ismāʿīlīs have also been
referred to as the Bāṭiniyyah. This fact in itself is another
indication of the important role that interpretation of the
Quran has played in Islamic history.

In Ismāʿīlism the Imams are considered to be the exclusive

authority on esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl), but not exactly in
the same sense as in Twelve-Imam Shīʿism. In Ismāʿīlism the
Imam is ṣāḥib al-taʾwīl (its owner, author, or authority), as
compared with the nāṭiq (speaker) or ṣāḥib al-tanzīl (upon
whom the Revelation descended), whose function is to
communicate the Revelation to the public and to divulge its

108
exoteric meaning or tafsīr. In any case, there are very few
Ismāʿīlī commentaries known to us, and none of them
contains a complete, or even a continuous, exposition of the
inner meaning of the Quran from beginning to end—as one
may expect from a movement that is esoteric by definition
and has emphasized the esoteric aspect of the Quran so much.
We even know that up to the present time the Ismāʿīlīs’
favorite commentary has been the one attributed to Ibn
ʿArabī, whom they generally consider to have been an
Ismāʿīlī.61 This lack of comprehensive esoteric commentaries
on the part of Ismāʿīlīs may be taken by their critics as a
refutation of their claim that they insist on an esoteric sense
pervading every word of the Quran.

The nature of the movement itself and the historical

circumstances surrounding it may, however, account, to a
large extent, for the loss or unavailability of Ismāʿīlī
commentaries. Moreover, the existence of only partial
esoteric commentaries is perhaps in itself an indication that
too much emphasis on the esoteric is not a characteristic of
every Ismāʿīlī school, with the exception of the movement of
Alamut.

At any rate, in this obscure area in the history of Quranic

commentary the earliest works having to do with Quranic
interpretations that are more or less connected to Ismāʿīlism
are The Epistles of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, or the Brethren of
Purity, which were written around the second half of the
fourth/tenth century.62 Although these encyclopedic epistles
do not constitute a commentary in the strict sense, Quranic
references and interpretations permeate all of them in the
manner characteristic of all Islamic esoteric works. Among
the connections found between the Ikhwān and Ismāʿīlism is,

109
precisely, the emphasis of both on the essential notion of
taʾwīl, cosmic and Quranic alike.63 From around the same
period as these Epistles comes a commentary of definitely
Ismāʿīlī nature by al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān ibn Ḥayyūn al-Maghribī
(d. 363/974), who was an eminent dāʿī (missionary) as
well as a supreme judge in Fāṭimid Egypt. This book on the
foundations of spiritual hermeneutics, described by its
modern editor as the only work among the Ismāʿīlī
manuscripts that deals specifically with the Ismāʿīlī
hermeneutical theory, is not, however, a systematic
commentary.64 It rather focuses on the six nāṭiqs, or great
prophets, mentioned in the Quran (beginning with Adam),
alongside their corresponding Imams and lawāḥiq (later
followers). Selected Quranic verses are divided into groups,
each clustering around one cycle of a nāṭiq. This scheme is to
be found in the Fuṣūṣ of Ibn ʿArabī, an indirect Quranic
commentary written more than two centuries later. The other
work of continuous commentary attributed to him is highly
reputed among the Ismaʿīlīs, and, in fact, Ibn ʿArabī is
recognized by many members of this movement as one of
them. Be that as it may, it should be added that al-Qāḍī
al-Nuʿmān, in his capacity as judge and jurist, is credited also
with another work dealing with the law (the Sharīʿah) and the
foundations of Islam, the exoteric counterpart of his esoteric
commentary.65 This fact is in itself significant and not
unrelated to our previous discussion concerning the role of
esoteric exegesis in Ismāʿīlism.

Let us return to the Twelve-Imam theosophical commentaries.

They have continued uninterrupted to the present day. One of
the disciples of Muḥsin Fayḍ al-Kāshānī, Abuʾl-Ḥasan Sharīf
ʿĀmilī Iṣfahānī (d. 1138/1726), started a monumental
commentary project with the aim of pointing out the esoteric

110
sense of every Quranic verse with reference to the traditions
of the Imams related to each verse. However, what he
completed was a large volume of introductions, which is a
significant achievement in itself, setting forth the general
principles and the rules of Shīʿite hermeneutical methods.66
During the last and present centuries, one continues to find
monumental commentaries, such as those of Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh
(d. ca. 1318/1900) and Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn
Ṭabāṭabāʾī (1321/1903–1402/1982).67

Later Sufi Commentaries

Sufi commentaries in their turn have never ceased to appear.

To go back to the seventh/thirteenth century, it is necessary to
mention the other Suhrawardī, Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar (d. 632/
1234), among important Sufi commentators.68 Through the
next centuries one encounters the names of Niẓām al-Dīn
Nayshābūrī (d. 728/1328),69 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 892/
1492),70 Kamāl al-Dīn Kāshifī (d. 910/1504–5),71 ʿAbd
al-Ḥaqq al-Dihlawī (d. 1052/1642),72 Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī (d. 1127/
1715), and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Alūsī (d. 1270–1854).73 The
tradition has continued up to the present century with the
Tafsīr al-Qurʾān and commentaries upon chapters LIII and
CIII of
Shaykh Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī (d. 1352/1934) and, more recently,
the Book of Certainty by Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din.74

The Methods and Goals of Esoteric Exegesis

Now that we have analyzed briefly esoteric commentaries on

the Quran in their long history, it is perhaps appropriate to
consider and reemphasize a few essential points related to
their method. In any discussion of this subject, one cannot

111
avoid the well-known question of the exact attitude of
esoteric commentaries toward the literal, apparent aspect of
the Quran. This question is often raised without true
knowledge of the commentaries in question and is indeed
irrelevant as far as the true nature of the Quran is concerned.
It is particularly reminiscent of the so-called problem of the
creation of the Quran, another celebrated question in the
history of Islamic thought. Both questions are simply
irrelevant to the true nature of the Quran, since they both
betray unawareness of the fundamental principle of the
hierarchy of reality that is so evident in the Quran itself.75
However, the real attitude of esoteric commentaries toward
the external meaning of the Text becomes clear even from a
look at the general plan of many of these commentaries,
without going into their content.

Many of the commentaries we have already mentioned

contain exoteric, that is, linguistic, historical, moral, and legal
interpretations side by side with esoteric ones. This scheme
appears as early as the commentary of al-Tustarī, the first
known continuous Sufi commentary on the Quran, and as late
as the commentary of al-Alūsī in the thirteenth/nineteenth
century, as well as between the two in such commentaries as
those of Maybudī, Rāzī, Nayshābūrī, and Ḥaqqī. To call these
commentaries esoteric is correct with regard to the general
tendency of their authors and one aspect of their contents, but
with regard to other aspects, these commentaries may be
called exoteric. As a matter of fact, some commentators give
almost equal space to both kinds of interpretation, as is the
case with Nayshābūrī, Ḥaqqī, and al-Alūsī. But even those
who exclusively deal with the esoteric side do, of course,
recognize the exoteric and many of them emphasize this point
in their introductions.

112
We have also seen the case of the Ḥanbalite Anṣārī, who, we
may add here, was persecuted because of his Ḥanbalism, to be
sure, not because of his Sufism, and who would therefore be
the last person to be suspected of belittling the external
meaning and the letter of the Quran. We have seen likewise
that al-Qushayrī dealt with esoteric interpretations proper in
his
Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, but only after having written an exoteric
commentary that is counted among the best by exoteric
authorities. Al-Sulamī, who was the first compiler of purely
esoteric interpretations, declared in his introduction that he
dealt with only the esoteric meaning because exoteric
commentaries were already abundantly available.

Another noticeable feature of many esoteric commentaries,

which is closely related to the question of their relationship to
the external meaning of the text, is that they do not cover all
the Quranic verses. Many of the commentaries, starting again
from al-Tustarī’s, contain only interpretations of selected
verses, and it is in this sense that they are called “continuous,”
not complete or comprehensive. Other examples are the work
of al-Sulamī himself and the purely gnostic commentaries of
Baqlī and Kāshānī. It may be generally said that the more
esoteric a commentary, the fewer Quranic verses it covers.
Besides, we have already seen commentaries limited to a few
verses and a few suras. Although the tradition that the Quran
has both outward and inward aspects has variations that seem
to emphasize that “every verse” or “every letter” possesses
both aspects, in practice they are understood in their general
sense, for no single commentator is expected to reveal the
inward meaning of every verse, although some of them have
attempted to do so. This might also have to do with the theory
of “the variance in the excellence of the Quranic verses”

113
expounded by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī.76 At any rate,
Kāshānī states clearly that there are Quranic verses that are
not susceptible of taʾwīl and should be thus understood only
in their literal sense. These are especially the verses that have
to do with legal matters. Even when he sometimes
“comments” on some of them, he calls this taṭbīq, reference
to parallels, or correspondents, in the sense of reminding the
reader of the general laws of correspondence between the
cosmos, man, and the Quran, and not in the sense of
introducing something in addition to the external meaning.77

Very often the symbolic meaning or meanings of a verse turn

out upon careful consideration to be only a development
whose roots are contained within the literal meaning itself, so
that it becomes difficult to separate the one from the other.
We shall select two Quranic verses and see how they are
interpreted by the commentators and how their meaning
unfolds within the Quran itself. The two verses are the
following:

He (God) has let loose the two seas; they meet one another. Between them is
a barrier (barzakh), so they encroach not (one upon the other). (LV, 19–20)

The symbolic meaning usually given to “the two seas” by the

commentators is “the spirit and the body” or “the next world
and this world.”78 Although no type of analysis can substitute
for the dhawq, or intellectual intuition of
the commentators, we shall attempt to follow the meaning of
“the two seas” as it develops in the light of other verses and
see how the plurality of meaning in the Quran reflects the
universal principle of the hierarchy of reality. We shall, to a
certain extent, depend upon Quranic allusions (ishārāt),
which the commentators very often find in the Quran,

114
especially when a certain word is repeated in different verses
that are apparently different in context. First, the immediate,
literal meaning of “the two seas” is given by the Quran itself
in another verse. It is the river with its sweet (furāt) water and
the ordinary sea with its salty, bitter (ujāj) water (XXXV, 12).
But another contrast to the salty sea is the rain, described also
as furāt (LXXVII, 27) and opposed to ujāj or bitter water
(LVI, 70). The sky, from which the rain descends, has in its
turn its stars called jawārī (running, or going straight)
(LXXXI, 16). Ships in the sea are called jawārī (XLII, 32),
and both the sun and ships are described as tajrī (running)
(XXXVI, 38 and II, 164). The fulk, the Quranic name of
ships, is also etymologically connected to falak, the orbit of
celestial bodies, where the sun and the moon follow, literally
“swimming” (yasbaḥūn), as if they were swimming in a sea
(XXI, 33). Yet both “the sky” and “heaven” are designated in
the Quran by a single word, al-samāʾ (II, 22, LXVII, 16–17).
Moreover, the Quran speaks of majmaʿ al-baḥrayn, the
meeting place of “the two seas,” in the famous story of Moses
and al-Khiḍr, where this “meeting place” is described as a
rock (ṣakhrah) (XVIII, 63), which suggests that the barrier
between “the two seas” (the barzakh) is also an immense
vertical one and not only the kind of a barrier that might exist
between a river and a sea. This rock is, moreover, called
majmaʿ baynihimā (XVIII, 61), the meeting place between
the two seas, and this Arabic phrase seems indeed to be the
only linguistic clue in the whole Quran to al-Samāwāt
waʾl-arḍ wa mā baynahumā, heaven and earth and what is
between them, another often-repeated phrase (e.g., V, 17, 18).
However, what we need to realize here is that “the two seas”
are, on a fourth level of meaning, heaven and earth or, in
other words, the spiritual and the material worlds. A fifth
level is further revealed by the other use of the barzakh in an

115
eschatological sense, where it stands behind the dead until
they are resurrected (XXIII, 100). The first, sweet “sea” is
thus the river, the rain, the sky, heaven or the world of the
Spirit, and the hereafter. The second, salty “sea” is the sea in
the ordinary sense, the earth, the material, bodily world, and
this world as opposed to the next. The meaning gradually
develops from “below” to “above” to the “inside” of the
universe and man as well as from “now” to “later,” going
through a phenomenon of nature to the four major dimensions
of being and of all esoteric doctrines, namely, cosmology,
metaphysics, psychology, and eschatology.79

We should, however, never forget that the ultimate goal of the

spiritual
commentators is not just to disclose for their readers the
meaning, or meanings, of this or that Quranic verse. Mention
was made at the beginning of the Divine Presence inherently
embodied in the Book of God, or what has been called its
“theurgic power,”80 with its definite effect on its reciters and
hearers, and, with all the more reasons, its spiritual
commentators, who more than anyone else partake of its
Divine Essence. Being thoroughly prepared by the knowledge
of Quranic sciences and previous commentaries, by access to
the oral spiritual tradition,81 and—last but not least—by
self-purification, the final aim of the spiritual commentators is
“to know” and “to be,” that is, to know what the Quran
ultimately means as well as to be transmuted by its Divine
Power to attain spiritual perfection. In the spiritual
hermeneutical process there has been no separation
whatsoever between knowing and being, between sacred
knowledge and spiritual perfection; “to know has meant
ultimately to be transformed by the very process of
knowing.”82 Here the effect becomes a cause, and the cause

116
an effect, as knowledge of the Book becomes the direct
source of spiritual perfection, and spiritual perfection directly
leads to more knowledge. Once the commentators have
chosen to commit the fruits of their spiritual hermeneutical
experience to writing, it becomes the responsibility of the
readers of their commentaries to be constantly aware of their
inspirational origin and to attempt to relive the experience of
their authors. The real wish of the commentators is to guide
the reader, not to entertain him, by disclosing the secret
meaning of this or that passage. “God’s first wish is to save,
not to instruct, and His concern is with wisdom and
immortality, not with external knowledge, still less with
satisfying human curiosity.”83 After the Books of God this
applies to nothing other than their spiritual interpretations.

If one looks for the first and most important source of Islamic
spirituality, it is to be found nowhere if not in the spiritual
understanding of the Quran. The three dimensions of Islamic
spiritual life, that is, the doctrine, the (spiritual) virtues, and
the spiritual practices, are all in fact traced back to it.84 To
say that the Quran is the supreme source of Islamic
spirituality is only another way of saying that its spiritual
comprehension is exactly this source. Without the inspired
commentaries upon the Quran, its esoteric reality and
far-reaching spiritual potentialities for both spiritual life and
knowledge can never be fully perceived. Moreover, it is in the
truthfulness of the spiritual understanding of the Quran that
the legitimacy of the spiritual life in Islam should be first
sought. For it is from the Book that every legitimate aspect,
exoteric or esoteric, in Islam derives its first source, and the
Sunnah of the Prophet, which is the second along the
hierarchy of the origins of Islamic life, is essentially a vast
commentary upon the Quran.85

117
It is in the same sense that the nature of the Prophet, the
ever-living model of Islamic life, was said to have been the
nature of the Quran (kāna khulu-quhu al-Qurʾān).86

Notes

1. Taʾwīl in this sense is in contrast to tafsīr, understood here

as the particular process of ordinary or exoteric exegesis. The
general science of Quranic exegesis, as well as the totality of
a work of Quranic commentary, is still called tafsīr, whether
an exoteric or an esoteric process is followed. It is in these
two last senses that the term tafsīr should be understood
whenever it is used throughout this chapter, that is, to indicate
the general science of exegesis or the works concerned with
esoteric commentary, although the process these works use is
called taʾwīl.

2. Frithjof Schuon, Understanding Islam, trans. D. M.

Matheson (London: Allen & Unwin, 1963) 48 n.1.

3. Quranic passages are quoted from the Pickthall or the

Dawood translation, with some modifications.

4. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī, Mishkāt al-anwār, ed. Abuʾl-ʿAlāʾ

ʿAfīfī (Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmiyyah, 1964) 39. This work has
been translated into English with an introduction by W. H. T.
Gairdner as Al-Ghazzālī’s Mishkāt-ul-anwār: The Niche for
Lights (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1952). Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī,
Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. A. ‘Afīfī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī,
1946). See esp. 98, 159, 215, 222–23.

5. Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī, Laṭāʾif al-minan, ed. ʿAbd

al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Ḥisān, 1974) 252–72.

118
6. See Sahl al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿādah, 1908), 12; Muḥammad Murtaḍā
al-Zabīdī, Itḥāf al-sādah al-muttaqīn bi sharḥ asrār iḥyāʾ
ʿulūm al-dīn (10 vols.; Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿat al-Maymaniyyah,
1893–94) 4:531.

7. See also H. Corbin, Histoire de la philosophie islamique,

Part I (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) 20–21.

8. Muḥammad Abul Quasem, The Recitation and

Interpretation of the Quran: al-Ghazzālī’s Theory (London
and Boston: Kegan Paul International, 1982) 87.

9. Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr waʾ

l-mufassirūn (2nd ed.; 2 vols.; Cairo: Dār al-Kutub
al-Ḥadīthah, 1967) 1:89–90.

10. Al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 12; G. Böwering, The Mystical Vision

of Existence in Classical Islam: The Quranic Hermeneutics of
the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter,
1980) 140.

11. See Abul Quasem, Recitation and Interpretation, 65–66 n.

194, 87, 89.

12. Al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr, 1:91

13. Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, ed. Ṭayyib

al-Mūsawī al-Jazāʾirī (2 vols.; Najaf: Maṭbaʿat al-Najaf, 1386
A.H.); see esp. 1:5–6, 14, 15.

119
14. L. Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique
de la mystique musulmane (rev. ed.; Paris: J. Vrin, 1968)
201–2.

15. See n. 6 above; Böwering, Mystical Vision, 43, 51, 55,

129, 265.

16. To be sure, al-Tustarī quotes the first four Imams; see

Böwering, Mystical Vision, 67.

17. Böwering, Mystical Vision, 141–42.

18. P. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique (Beirut:

Dar al-Mashriq, 1970) 158; Imām Ǧaʿfar Ṣādiq, “Tafsīr,
recension Sulamī,” ed. P. Nwyia, Mélanges de l’Université
Saint-Joseph 43 (1967) 179–230.

19. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique, 159–60.

20. Ibid., 164–207; see also John B. Taylor, “Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq,

Spiritual Forebear of the Sūfīs,” Islamic Culture 40 (April
1966). There is also a Quranic commentary, limited to the
first sura and a part of the second sura, attributed to al-Ḥasan
al-ʿAskārī, the eleventh Imam; see al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr,
2:42, 84, 97, 631.

21. See Corbin, Histoire, 1:22.

22. Nwyia, Exégèse coranique, 117–56.

23. Böwering, Mystical Vision, 110–11.

24. See n. 18 above; Massignon, Essai, 359–412.

120
25. Abu’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾf al-ishārāt, ed. Ibrāhīm
Basyūnī (6 vols.; Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿArabī, 1968–71).

26. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed. ʿAlī

Muḥammad ʿUmar (Cairo: Maktabat Wahbah, 1976) 74;
Shams al-Dīn al-Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed. ʿAlī
Muḥammad ‘Umar (2 vols.; Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1972)
1:341, 344.

27. See S. de Laugier de Beaurceuil, Khwādja Abdullāh

Anṣārī, mystique ḥanbalite (Beirut: Impr. Catholique, 1965)
esp. p. 175 n. 3.

28. Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār wa ʿuddat

al-abrār, ed. ʿA. A. Ḥikmat (10 vols.; Tehran: Intishārāt
Dānishgāhī, 1952–60).

29. Abdurrahman Badawi, Muʾallafāt al-Ghazālī (Cairo:

al-Majlis al-Aʿlāʾ li-Riʿāyat al-Funūn wa’l-Ādāb, 1961) 199.

30. See n. 4 above.

31. See n. 8 above.

32. See Massignon, Essai, 13, 413–18; Corbin, Histoire, 22;

al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr, 2:390, 632.

33. See H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, (4 vols.; Paris:

Gallimard, 1971–72) 3:176, 276; al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr,
2:395.

34. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3:273; see generally 3:275–355;

see also n. 79 below.

121
35. O. Yahya, Histoire et classification de l’oeuvre d’Ibn
ʿArabī (2 vols.; Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1964)
1:109.

36. Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, Iʿjāz al-bayān fī taʾwīl umm

al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭāʾ, in A. A. ʿAṭāʾ,
Al-Tafsīr al-ṣūfī liʾl-Qurʾān (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub
al-Ḥadīthah, 1969).

37. Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ʿArabī, Tafsīr al-Shaykh al-Akbar

(Cairo, 1867; Cawnpore, 1883); Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm
(Beirut: Dār al-Yaqẓat al-ʿArabiyyah, 1968). The most recent
edition is by Muṣṭafā Ghālib (2 vols.; Beirut: Dār al-Andalus,
1978). See Yahya, Histoire, vol. 2, no. 724 (p. 480), no. 732
(p. 483). Selections from al-Kāshānī’s commentary are
translated into French by M. Valsân in Etudes Traditionelles
(1963–75 at intervals).

38. Jalā al-Dīn Rūmī, Mathnawī maʿnawī, ed. and trans. R. A.

Nicholson (8 vols.; Gibb Memorial Series n.s. 4; London:
Luzac, 1925–40).

39. S. H. Nasr, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Supreme Persian Poet and

Sage (Tehran: Conseil Superieur de la Culture et des Arts,
1974) 27, 40; see also idem, Rūmī and the Sufi Tradition
(Tehran: RCD Cultural Institute, 1974) 3; idem, Ideals and
Realities of Islam (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985) 58, 60.

40. Nasr, Rūmī and the Sufi Tradition, 3, 19 n. 6.

41. Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī, Laṭāʾif al-minan, esp.

228–51.

122
42. See Corbin, Histoire, vol. 1, chap. 1, sec. 1; Nasr, Ideals
and Realities, 61.

43. S. H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardī,

Ibn ʿArabī (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964)
24.

44. Al-Fārābī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿādah,

1907) 170–75.

45. Ibn Sīnā, Panj risālah, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (Tehran:

Anjuman-i āthār-i millī, 1953); idem, Jāmiʿ al-badāʾiʿ (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿādah, 1917) 27–33; idem, Tisʿ rasāʾil
fiʾl-ḥikmah waʾl-ṭabīʿiyyāt (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Hindiyyah, 1908)
125–32.

46. Ibn Sīnā, Tisʿ rasāʾil.

47. See S. H. Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological

Doctrines (rev. ed.; Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1978) 209–12;
idem, Three Muslim Sages, 31, 141 nn. 57, 58. For more on
Ibn Sīnā’s relation to Islamic esotericism, see Nasr,
Introduction, 191–96.

48. S. H. Nasr, Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī and His Transcendent

Theosophy (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy,
1978) 71, 89.

49. Nasr, Introduction, 181 n. 6, 183.

50. Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 150, 160–62.

51. See Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 166.

123
52. Ibid., 126–27; Nasr, Sufi Essays (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1972) 105, 107, 119–20.

53. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, Al-Tibyān fī tafsīr

al-Qurʾān (10 vols.; Najaf: al-Maṭbaʿat al-ʿIlmiyyah,
1957–63); Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl al-Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-bayān fī
tafsīr al-Qurʾān (12 vols.; Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt,
1961).

54. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3:173–77; 1:27 n. 4.

55. Ibid., 3:234–74.

56. Nasr, Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, 157, 90.

57. Ibid., 40, 43, 44, 45, 48, 90 (citation, p. 90).

58. Ibid., 157, 71.

59. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3:228 n. 58; idem, Histoire, 23;

Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 60. It should be added that ʿAlawī
is also connected to Mullā Ṣadrā in that they were both
disciples of Mīr Dāmād.

60. Al-Dhahabī, Al-Tafsīr, 2:145–85.

61. Nasr, Sufi Essays, 100.

62. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (12 vols.;

Beirut: Dār Bayrūt, 1957).

63. Nasr, Introduction, 36.

124
64. Al-Nuʿmān b. Ḥayyūn al-Maghribī, Kitāb asās al-taʾwīl,
ed. Aref Tamer (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfah, 1960) 5. For a
discussion of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s chapters on the cycles of
Adam and Noah, see Corbin, Face de Dieu, Face de l’homme
(Paris: Flammarion) 108–62.

65. Al-Qādī al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim al-islām, ed. Asaf A. A.

Fyzee (2 vols.; Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1951–60).

66. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 1:27 n. 4; idem, Histoire, 23;

Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 60.

67. Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh, Bayān al-saʿādah fī maqāmāt

al-ʿibādah (quoted in Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3:229);
ʿAllāmah Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Al-Mīzān fī
tafsīr al-Qurʾān (20 vols.; Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlāmī,
1973–74).

68. See al-Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt, 2:10.

69. Niẓām al-Dīn al-Nayshābūrī, Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān wa

raghāʾib al-Furqān, ed. Ibrāhīm ʿAṭwah ʿIwaḍ (5 vols.;
Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1962–70).

70. Qāsim al-Qaysī, Tārīkh al-tafsīr (Baghdad: al-Majmaʿ

al-ʿilmī al-ʿIrāqī, 1966) 80.

71. Nasr, Sufi Essays, 26, 115.

72. A. M. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975) 363.

125
73. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, Rūḥ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān (6 vols.;
Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿat al-Amīrah, 1870); Shihāb al-Dīn al-Alūsī,
Rūḥ al-maʿānī fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm waʾl-sabʿ
al-mathānī (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1970).

74. M. Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, Shaykh

Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī (2nd ed.; Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1971) 230, 231; see also 173–75; Abū Bakr Sirāj
Ed-Dīn, The Book of Certainty (New York: Samuel Weiser,
1974).

75. See Corbin, Histoire, 1:25.

76. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī, The Jewels of the Quran, trans.

M. Abul Quasem (London and Boston: Kegan Paul
International, 1983) 64-65.

77. Ibn ʿArabī, Tafsīr (1968 ed.) 1:5, 477; see also 441.

78. See, e.g., Ibn ʿArabī, Tafsīr, 2:573; Sirāj Ed-Dīn, Book of
Certainty, 22, 102. See also M. Lings, “The Quranic
Symbolism of Water,” in Studies in Comparative Religion 2
(Summer, 1968) 153–60; al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 95, 97.

79. See Nasr, Sufi Essays, 45–47. Commentaries upon the

well-known Verse of Light, mentioned several times above,
are of the greatest spiritual significance, linked to the whole
of the spiritual experience itself; they bring out the same
metaphysical, cosmological, and psychological dimensions of
the doctrine just outlined, in addition to their strong relation
to spiritual practices. See al-Ghazzālī, Mishkāt al-anwār;
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Glorious Qurʾan (2
vols.; Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Miṣrī, n.d.) 1:920–24 (a

126
summary of al-Ghazzālī’s work). See, moreover, F. Schuon,
Dimensions of Islam, trans. P. N. Townsend (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1970) chap. 8 (An-Nūr), esp. 108–9; H. Corbin,
The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, trans. N. Pearson
(Boulder, CO, and London: Shambala, 1978) esp. 106.
Chapter 6 of Corbin’s book is a study of the (unpublished)
commentary of Simnānī (n. 33 above). As shown by Corbin,
Simnānī’s search for “the seven esoteric meanings of the
Quran” gradually leads to the growth of “seven suprasensory,
inner organs,” each of which is characterized by a certain
“colored light.” There is perhaps no more eloquent testimony
to the unbreakable connection between the method and
conclusions of spiritual hermeneutics on the one hand, and the
stages and goal of the spiritual experience on the other. See
further Corbin, “L’intériorisation du sens en herméneutique
soufie iranienne,” Eranos Jahrbuch 26 (1958) 57–187; the
section on Simnānī is also to be found, somewhat revised, in
En Islam iranien, 3:275–355.

80. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 48.

81. Ibid., 46.

82. S. H. Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred (New York:

Crossroad, 1981) vii.

83. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 45.

84. On the doctrine, the virtues, and the spiritual practices and
their relation to the spiritual understanding of the Quran, see
Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 135–43. See further T. Burckhardt,
An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson

127
(Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1959) 32–40, 57–142; Nasr, Sufi Essays,
35–37; idem, Three Muslim Sages, 102–16.

85. Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 65.

86. This is the well-known saying attributed to ʿĀʾishah bint

Abī Bakr, wife of the Prophet.

128
129
 4

The Spiritual Significance of the Substance of the Prophet

FRITHJOF SCHUON

The Prophetic Substance: Source of Islamic Spirituality

THE CONCRETE CONTENT—and thus the origin—of

Islamic spirituality is the spiritual Substance of the Prophet,
this Substance whose modalities such Sufi authorities as
al-Qushayrī and Ibn al-ʿArīf have tried to catalog by means of
the notion of “stations” (maqāmāt). Sufism is the realization
of Union, not only by starting from the idea of Unity that is
both transcendent and immanent but also, and correlatively,
by reintegration into the Muḥammadan Substance that is
hidden and yet ever present—and this whether accomplished
directly or indirectly or in both manners at once. This means
that the mystical “traveler” (sālik) may “follow the example
of the Prophet” in a way that is either formal or formless,
hence indirect or direct. For the Sunnah is not just the
multitude of precepts; it is also the “Muḥammadan
Substance”1—of which these precepts are the reflections at
various levels—which coincides with the mystery of the
“immanent Prophet.” The intrinsic qualities are in principle or
in themselves independent of outward comportment, whereas
the whole reason for the existence of the latter lies in the
former, somewhat as, according to the Shaykh al-ʿAlawī,2 the
sufficient reason of the rites is the remembrance of God,
which contains all rites in an undifferentiated synthesis.

130
Man has two kinds of relationship with the Divine Order, one
direct and the other indirect. The first encompasses prayer
and, more esoterically, intellectual discernment and unitive
concentration; the second goes to God through the door of the
human Logos, and it comprises the virtues of which the
Logos is the personification and model. In question here are
not only the elementary virtues, which may be natural to man
or which he can
draw from himself, but also and above all the supernatural
virtues, which on the one hand are graces and on the other
require that man transcend himself and even cease to “be” in
order to “become.” No path exists without reference to a
human manifestation of the Logos, just as with all the more
reason none exists without a direct relationship with God.

Outwardly, the Prophet is legislator, and he can easily be

grasped as such; inwardly, in his Substance, he represents
esoterism at every level—whence a duality which is at the
source of certain antinomies and which in the last analysis has
given rise to the schism between Sunnis and Shīʿites. The
legislator points out the way and gives the right example on
the formalistic plane of legality and morality, whereas the
Muḥammadan Substance—the soul of the Prophet insofar as
it is accessible in principle—is a concrete and
quasi-sacramental presence that prefigures the state of
salvation or of deliverance and that invites one not to legality
or to the social virtues but to self-transcendence and
transformation—hence to extinction and to a second birth.

The driving idea of Islam is the concept of Unity; it

determines not only the doctrine and the organization of
society but also the entire life of the individual and in
particular his piety, which, moreover, cannot be dissociated

131
from his legal comportment. It is not just a question of
accepting the idea of Unity but also of drawing from this idea
all the consequences that it implies for man; that is to say, one
must accept it “with faith” and “sincerity” in order to benefit
from the saving virtue it contains. Thus, in the last analysis
the idea of Unity fundamentally implies the mystery of
Union, just as, in a related order of ideas, unicity implies as
its complement totality. To be able to grasp the geometric
point is to be able to grasp all of space; the unicity of the
Divine Object demands the totality of the human subject.

Yet despite the clarity of this relationship of cause and effect,

Islamic spirituality presents an enigma in that its theoretical
and practical expressions often seem to draw away from
Islam as such,3 notwithstanding the efforts of the Sufis to
emphasize the legality of their opinions and methods, even
those most foreign to the overall perspective of Islam. The
entire enigma lies in the fact that there is here a dimension
which the Law has not articulated or which it only suggests
covertly. This enigma stems from the very person of the
Prophet, who privately—if one may say so—practiced an
ascesis that he doubtless recommended to some but did not
make mandatory, which, moreover, in his own case could not
signify the “purgative way” as it did with those who have
emulated him. This ascesis—readily confused with Sufism,
whereas it may merely be a preparatory trial at the threshold
of the mysteries—is far from constituting the Substance itself
of
the Messenger. Being a spiritual beatitude and thus a state of
consciousness, the prophetic Substance remains independent
of all formal conditions, even though the formal practices can
be rightly considered as paths toward participation in this
Substance.

132
The Prophet and the Spiritual Virtues—Numerical and
Spatial Symbolism

The spiritual nature of the Prophet is determined, illumined,

and vivified by two poles, which we might designate, quite
synthetically, by the terms “truth” and “heart”: the truth of
God, of the Sovereign Good, and the heart-intellect that
mysteriously houses it; transcendence and immanence.

The Muḥammadan Substance comprises all the qualities or

the degrees of preeminence which the Sufis term “stations”
(maqāmāt) and which in principle are innumerable, given that
it is always possible to subdivide them and thereby extract
new modes from them. But simplicity also has its rights:
starting from a given plurality, one can always proceed from
synthesis to synthesis toward pure substantiality, which here
is none other than the love of God in the widest as well as the
deepest meaning of the word. We are then at the source, but
lacking differentiated points of reference which could impart
to us the internal riches of this love. It is appropriate therefore
to halt at a golden mean between synthesis and analysis, and
this mean, far from being arbitrary, is offered by traditional
symbolism as well as by certain cosmic structures. Paradise
contains four rivers that flow from the Throne of Allah, and
there are four archangels at the summit of the angelic
hierarchy; the Kaʿbah has four sides, and space has four
cardinal points.4 But before considering the Muḥammadan
Substance in its aspect of quaternity, we must explain the
meaning of the numbers that precede it. According to unity,
this Substance is the love of God; according to duality, it is
the tension between the two poles truth and heart,
transcendence and immanence; and according to trinity, this
same Substance reveals the mystery of the prophetic quality,

133
which comprises first of all perfect conformity and receptivity
with regard to the Lord, then the prophetic Message as
“content” of the Prophet and as the quasi-hypostatic link
between him and God, and finally the perfect knowledge of
Him who gives the Message.

The odd numbers are “retrospective” in the sense that they

express an infolding toward Unity, or the Divine Origin,
whereas the even numbers are “prospective” in the sense that
they express on the contrary a movement in the direction of
manifestation, the world, or the universe. In the first
Shahādah (“There is no divinity but God alone”), which in
Arabic comprises
four words, the truth of the principle penetrates, so to speak,
“prospectively” into the world; in the second Shahādah
(“Muḥammad is the Messenger of God”), which in Arabic
comprises three words, the Prophet is defined
“retrospectively” in relation to his Divine Source. The
number four in particular (the words of the first Shahādah: lā
ilāha illaʾLlāh) expresses the radiation of the principle with
respect to the world and is therefore the number-symbol of
radiation. When, correlatively, we consider the source—or the
center—of the radiation, we arrive at the symbolism of the
number five; and when we take into account the two poles
determining the quaternity, namely, the transcendent and the
immanent, we come to the symbolism of the number six.

As for the quaternity, which is the mean of our synthesis or

analysis—for every number lies between these two poles—its
inner significance becomes clear in the light of the symbolism
of the cardinal points. The north is negative perfection, which
is exclusive and surpasses or transcends; the south is positive
perfection, which is inclusive and vivifies and deepens; the

134
east is active perfection, which is dynamic and affirms,
realizes and is, if need be, combative; and the west is passive
perfection, which is static and peace-giving. We say
“perfection” rather than “principle” since we have in view the
prophetic nature, which is human.

But let us leave for now these more or less abstract

preliminaries and consider concretely the principial aspects of
the spiritual Substance of the Prophet, which sums up all the
“stations” and, by the same token, all the Sunnah—at least as
regards its subjective and spiritual motivations. In the
soul-intelligence of the Prophet there is, first of all, the quality
of serenity; this perfection rises above the turmoil of the
contingencies of the world and is linked to the Divine
Mystery of transcendence. To be serene is to situate oneself
above all pettiness. Serenity is, accordingly, not only an
elevation but also an expansion (inshirāḥ, “dilation of the
breast”).5 In consequence it evokes the boundlessness of
heights and the luminosity that fills them and gives them their
natural and glorious content. This station, or category of
stations, is often represented, in various traditional forms of
symbolism, by the eagle soaring above the accidental features
of a landscape, in majestic solitude, alone toward the sun.
Snow is another image of this station; pure and celestial, it
covers the accidental features of a landscape with a white,
crystalline blanket, reducing all diversity to the
undifferentiation of materia prima. This same mystery of
elevation, boundlessness, and transcendence finds a religious
expression in the call to prayer from the top of the minaret,
reducing as it does all earthly agitation and turmoil to a
celestial undifferentiation—an undifferentiation that is the
opposite of leveling, for the former is qualitative whereas the
latter is quantitative. These considerations pertain

135
to the mystery of purity, which is symbolized by the north and
thus also by the pole star.6 And to this order of ideas belong
the sacrificial attitudes of abstention, renunciation, poverty,
and sobriety; or the virtues of detachment, patience,
resignation, and impassibility; or again the conditions of
solitude, silence, and emptiness—qualities or stations whose
flavor is not one of sadness but of the calm and already
celestial joy that is serenity.

Although the “vertical” complement of the north is the south,

we prefer to consider first the message of the west, which,
being static and pertaining to “passive perfection,” prolongs
in a certain way the static message of the north. At the same
time its quality of mildness, which it shares with the south,
distinguishes it from the rigor of both the north and the east.

The message of the west, then, is that of recollection, of

contemplation, of peace. Like serenity, recollection implies
holy resignation, but in a manner that is gentle and not
rigorous, so that immobility here is conditioned not by a void
or by the absence of the world with its noise and turmoil but,
on the contrary, by a plenitude, namely, the inward and
peace-giving presence of the Sovereign Good. Recollection is
intimately linked to the sense of the sacred; within the realm
of material things, it evokes not the luminous and cold heights
of the boundless sky, but rather the sacral and enclosing
intimacy of the forest or the sanctuary. It thus evokes that
reverential awe—fascinating and immobilizing—which holy
places, works of sacred art, and also various manifestations of
virgin nature can provoke in the soul. The idea of recollection
calls to mind all the symbols of contemplative immobility, all
the liturgical signs of adoration: lamps or consecrated
candles, bouquets or garlands of flowers—in short, all that

136
stands before God and offers itself to His Presence, which is
silence, inwardness, beauty, and peace. It is this atmosphere
that is suggested and created in mosques by the prayer niche
(miḥrāb), the same prayer niche that is the abode of the
Virgin Mary, according to the Quran. Mary personifies
mystical retreat and prayer, hence the mystery of recollection.
All this refers to that holy repose (iṭmʾnān, “appeasement of
hearts”) of which the Quran conveys the echoes.7

Recollection, like serenity, is indicated by the word “peace”

in the formula eulogistic of the Prophet: “Upon him be
blessing and peace” (ʿalayhiʾṣ-ṣalāt waʾs-salām). From the
element “blessing” stem the two qualities of which we shall
now speak, namely, fervor and certitude. Fervor, in spatial
symbolism, is the “horizontal” complement of recollection,
certitude being the “vertical” complement of serenity. On the
one hand, the east is in a complementary fashion opposed to
the west, and on the other hand, the south is opposed to the
north. These considerations, although not indispensable,
can nevertheless be useful for those receptive to the language
of symbolism and analogies.

The quality of fervor seems to be opposed to that of

recollection, as action seems opposed to contemplation;
nonetheless, without sacramental and actualizing activity,
contemplation lacks support, not necessarily at a given
moment but as soon as duration makes itself felt. The quality
of fervor is, in fact, that disposition of soul which induces us
to perform what can be termed “spiritual duty.” If this duty is
imposed as outward law, it is because it is imposed inwardly
and a priori by our own “supranatural nature.” In Islam, this
immanent law is manifested as the “remembrance of God”
(dhikr Allāh); now the Quran specifies that it is necessary to

137
remember God “much” (dhikran kathīran), and it is this
frequency or this assiduousness, together with the sincerity of
the act of prayer, that constitutes the quality of fervor. For not
only must the sacred act dominate the instant in which it
arises; it must dominate duration as well. The perfection of
the act requires perseverance as its logical consequence and
complement. It is not enough to be a saint “now”; one must
be one “always,” and that is why the Sufi is the “son of the
moment” (ibn al-waqt). The comparison between spiritual
activity and holy war (jihād) will be readily understood: to
establish the sacred in a soul by nature
exteriorized—dispersed and at the same time
lazy—necessarily implies a combat, and one could even say a
combat against the dragon, to use an expression belonging to
initiatory symbolism. All spirituality requires in consequence
the virile virtues of vigilance, initiative, and tenacity. Thus,
fervor is a fundamental quality of the Man-Logos, and it can
be said that the immensity of the victory of Islam proves the
immensity of the strength of soul of the Prophet.

As for the quality of certitude, which takes precedence over

that of fervor since it provides the latter with its reason for
being, it is the liberating yes to realities that transcend us and
to the consequences that they impose upon us. Whether this
yes be a gift of heaven or a merit of our own—and the one
does not exclude the other, of course—makes no difference
psychologically. Certitude of God implies certitude of our
own immortality, for to be able to know the Absolute is to be
immortal; only the immortal soul is proportionate to this
knowledge. Moreover, he who appeals to the Divine Mercy
must himself be generous, in accordance with the ḥadīth
“Who hath no mercy, unto him shall be given no mercy”
(man lam yarḥam lam yurḥam). This defines the connection

138
between faith in God and charity toward the neighbor, or
between hope and generosity, particularly as the acceptance
of the Sovereign Good implies or requires the gift of self,
hence a kind of generosity toward heaven.

It is true that on the plane of metaphysical intellection the

transcendent
Invisible makes itself evident to our mind in such a way that
we cannot but accept it. But this impossibility of resisting the
truth lies then in our nature, and consequently the gift of self
to the Divine Real lies in our very substance. The a contrario
proof of this is that there are men who, although capable in
principle of admitting the highest truth, refuse to admit it,
owing to the tendencies of their passionate nature. The sincere
yes to that which transcends us always presupposes beauty of
soul, just as the capacity of a mirror to reflect light
presupposes its purity.

Thus, whether it be a matter of elementary belief, of ardent

faith, or of metaphysical knowledge, certitude always goes
hand in hand with beauty and goodness of soul. Closely
related to faith are trust and therefore hope. To trust in the
Divine Mercy without a moment’s despair, and yet without
temerity—while abstaining from what is contrary to it and
accomplishing what is in conformity with it—is a way of
saying yes to the Merciful, and no less so to the deiform
nature of our immortal soul. It is to say yes at once to God
and to immortality. It is in this sense that the Quran tells the
believers: “Verily ye have in the Messenger of God a fair
example for him who hath hope in God and in the Last Day,
and who remembereth God much” (XXXIII, 21), a saying
that combines the mystery of certitude with that of fervor. “I
am black, but beautiful,” says Wisdom in the Song of Songs.

139
She is black because she transcends and thereby negates our
all-too-human plane, but she is beautiful because, in revealing
herself to us, she reveals the Sovereign Good and thereby its
saving Mercy. If the Quran testifies to the supereminent
nature (khuluq ʿaẓīm) of Muḥammad, it is because, as a
Prophet, he realizes the greatest possible receptivity with
regard to the highest Reality.

The Significance of Faith

Even in pure intellection the “obscure merit of faith” has its

place. With all speculative knowledge there is still a gap
between the knower and the known; otherwise the former
would be identified with the latter, which indeed is
necessarily the case in a certain dimension—that of
intellection precisely. But intellection does not encompass the
entire being of the subject, or at least it does not encompass it
at every moment. Besides, passive union is one thing,
whereas active union is another. Therein lies all the difference
between a state (ḥāl) and a station (maqām). At all events, to
have certitude is not yet, in every respect, to be that of which
one is certain.

Clearly, the value of faith is more than simply moral. Not

only is faith good because of the merit entailed by its aspect
of obscurity; it is good also and above all because of the
certitudes it brings about in souls of good will.
Otherwise expressed, not only does faith imply that its object
is hidden from us because our nature comprises a veil; it also
implies that we see this object despite the veil, and through it.
The element of obscurity remains, since the veil is always
there, but at the same time this veil transmits certitude
because it is transparent. Thus, if the Shahādah signifies a

140
priori that a given quality is unreal since God alone is the
Good, it signifies a posteriori that a given quality “is not”—or
else it is of God to the extent that it “is”—for to “exist” is a
manner of “being.” Seen from this perspective, the Divine
Beauty manifested through earthly beauties never ceases to be
itself, in spite of the limitations of relativity. It is within this
context that one must situate that feature of the Muḥammadan
Substance which could be called “Solomonian,” namely, its
spiritual capacity to find concretely in woman all the aspects
of the Divine Femininity, from immanent Mercy to the
infinitude of universal Possibility. The sensorial experience
that produces in the ordinary man an inflation of the ego
actualizes in the “deified” man an extinction in the Divine
Self.

141
4. The name of Allah inscribed within the name of
Muḥammad repeated five times in a pentagonic pattern from
the mausoleum of Ulgaiter, Sultaneyyah.

142
But the “obscure merit of faith” includes still another and
altogether different meaning, which results from the
relationship between the subject and the object. On the one
hand, the subject—being contingent—has limits that prevent
him from knowing in an absolute, hence exhaustive, manner;
on the other hand, there appears to be on the part of the object
a “desire,” as it were, to conceal itself after a certain point, a
will not to be known totally, not to be divested of all mystery
of aseity or violated and emptied, so to speak, by the knowing
subject.8 The relative subject as such cannot know
everything, which amounts to saying that he has no need to
know everything, and this is true from the point of view of the
adequacy of knowledge itself. This also amounts to saying
that the object is by definition inexhaustible and that the more
one dissects and systematizes it abusively, the more it will
avenge itself by depriving us of its “life,” namely, that
something which, precisely, is the “gift” of the object to the
subject. Total knowledge exists, certainly, for otherwise the
very notion of knowledge would lose all its meaning, but it is
situated beyond the complementarity between subject and
object, in an inexpressible “beyond” whose foundation is the
ontological identity of the two terms. For neither the one nor
the other can be other than “that which is,” and there is but
one Being. Total knowledge means that the absolute Knower
knows Himself and that there is within us a door that opens
onto this knowledge—“within ourselves,” yet “beyond
ourselves.”

In metaphysics there is a principle of “the sufficient point of

reference,” namely, the awareness of the limit separating
sufficient and useful thought from thought that is wrong and
useless. It is the former that furnishes us

143
with points of reference enabling us to transcend the
indefinite plane of thought as such. For the man insensible to
the provisional character of concepts, it is natural to ask
thought to provide what it cannot and to reach the conviction
that thought is vain and that man can know nothing. But it is
not normal for man to take thought as an end in itself.

These reflections may all help to clarify the idea of certitude,

but a clearer idea of certitude may also be obtained by calling
to mind its contrary, which is doubt. To doubt what is
ontologically certain is to want not to be; it is thus a kind of
suicide, that of the spirit. To doubt the Divine Mercy is a
disgrace as great as to doubt God. Spiritual certitude implies
the liberating yes to that which transcends us and which in the
last analysis is our own essence—whence the relationship
between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God and also
between the knowledge of God and workings of Mercy.

The Soul of the Prophet: Sanctity and Art

The qualities, attitudes, or virtues of which we have spoken

are rooted in the Logos and consequently pertain also to the
“Muḥammadan Substance,” which can be defined as a
crystallization of the love of God, in a mode that unfolds, like
a fan, the fundamental qualities of the soul. According to
ʿĀʾishah, the “favorite wife,” the soul of the Prophet is
similar to the Quran. In order to understand this comparison,
one has to know that this Book, parallel to the literal wording
and in an underlying fashion, possesses a supraformal
“magic,” namely, a “soul” extending from the moral qualities
to the spiritual mysteries; whence comes the sacramental
function of the Text, a function independent of its form and
contents.

144
Although this magic, for a person receptive to it, can be used
as a way of approaching the Muḥammadan Substance, there is
nevertheless another way of this kind, more readily accessible
because far less demanding, and this is the concrete example
of holy men in Islamic countries—certainly not hagiography
with its stereotyped moralism and its extravagances, but
rather the living men who can communicate the perfume of
the barakah muḥammadiyyah of which they are the vehicles,
witnesses, and proofs. For without the qualities of the
Prophet, these men would not exist—neither in his time nor,
with all the more reason, a millennium and a half later.

Another testimony of this order—and it will come as a

surprise to those who fail to see the profound connections
between the most diverse traditional phenomena—is of
necessity provided by the arts and crafts of the
Muslims, above all architecture and dress, which relate
respectively to ambience and man. As with Christian or any
other traditional art, the important point to know is not from
what source the Muslim peoples drew for the materia prima
of their art. What is decisive with regard to worth and
originality is the way they have used this materia, what spirit
and what soul they have revealed through this matter, or
rather with it as its basis. Islamic art in its most authentic and
thus most characteristic realizations in the form of
calligraphy, architecture, mosque ornamentation, and dress is
the very expression of the soul and the spirit of the Prophet,
of his serenity and his recollection before God ever-present.

In summary, and leaving aside all considerations of the

mystical character of Muḥammad, we can say with historical
accuracy that the Prophet was generous, patient, noble, and
profoundly human in the best sense of the word. No doubt

145
there are those who will point out that this is all very well but
hardly significant and the least that could be expected of the
founder of a religion. Our reply is that, on the contrary, it is
something immense if this founder was able to inculcate these
qualities into his disciples, both close and distant, if he was
able to make of his virtues the roots of a spiritual and social
life and to confer upon them a vitality that would carry down
through the centuries. Herein lies everything.

What the Prophet Loved

According to a ḥadīth as enigmatic as it is famous, “women,

perfumes, and prayer” were “made lovable” (ḥubbiba ilayya)
to the Prophet. Since that is so, we have to admit that these
three loves, at first sight disparate, necessarily enter into the
Muḥammadan Substance and, consequently, into the spiritual
ideal of the Sufis. Every religion necessarily integrates the
feminine element—the “eternal feminine” (das Ewig
Weibliche), if one will—into its system, either directly or
indirectly. Christianity in practice deifies the Mother of
Christ, despite exoteric reservations, namely, the distinction
between latria and hyperdulia. Islam for its part, and
beginning with the Prophet, has consecrated femininity on the
basis of a metaphysics of deiformity; the secrecy surrounding
woman, symbolized in the veil, basically signifies an
intention of consecration. In Muslim eyes, woman, beyond
her purely biological and social role, incarnates two poles,
unitive “extinction” and “generosity.” These constitute from
the spiritual point of view two means of overcoming the
profane mentality, made as it is of outwardness, dispersion,
egoism, hardness, and boredom. The nobleness of soul that is
or can be gained by this interpretation or utilization of the
feminine

146
element, far from being an abstract ideal, is perfectly
recognizable in representative Muslims, those still rooted in
authentic Islam.9

As for the love of perfumes mentioned by the ḥadīth, it

symbolizes the sense of the sacred and in a general way the
sense of ambiences, emanations, and auras. Consequently, it
has to do with the “discernment of spirits,” not to mention the
sense of beauty. According to Islam, “God loves beauty” and
He hates uncleanness and noise, as is shown by the
atmosphere of freshness, harmony, and equilibrium, in short,
of barakah to be found in Muslim dwellings that have
remained traditional and above all in the mosques—an
atmosphere which clearly is also a part of the Muḥammadan
Substance.

The ḥadīth then mentions prayer, which is none other than

“remembrance of God,” and this constitutes the fundamental
reason for all possible loves, since it is love of the source and
of the archetypes. It coincides with the love of God, which is
the very essence of the prophetic nature. If prayer is
mentioned in the third place, it is by way of conclusion: in
speaking of women, Muḥammad is essentially speaking of his
inward nature; in speaking of perfumes, he has in mind the
world around us, the ambience; and in speaking of prayer, he
is giving expression to his love of God.

Regarding the first of the three enunciations in the ḥadīth, an

additional explanation is called for, and it is fundamental. The
apparent moral inconsistency in Islam has its source not only
in the antagonism between the public Law, on the one hand,
with its concern for equilibrium and harmony, and private
ascesis, on the other, intent on detachment and

147
self-transcendence. It has its source also in the personality of
the Prophet himself, in what appears at first sight as the
divergence between his ascesis and his sexual life. Tradition
mentioned, in fact, the virile power of the Prophet as well as
his voluntary poverty, his virtually constant hunger, and his
regular vigils. This apparent contradiction, which in reality is
a positive bipolarity, could not be peculiar to Muḥammad
alone—although it characterizes him among the Semitic
founders of religions—since it manifests a universal
phenomenon and thereby an archetype.

Islam holds in view two aspects of femininity: glorified

woman and woman as martyr. It situates two examples
outside of Islam, in the past, and two other examples at the
beginning of its own history. The martyrs are Āsiyah, the
believer-wife of Pharaoh the unbeliever, and Fāṭimah, harshly
treated by her father and her husband—and unjustly, from a
certain point of view, by the first caliph.10 The glorious
women are Maryam, whom “God hath purified and chosen
above all women,” and Khadījah, the first wife of the Prophet
and his guardian angel, so to speak, as well as “protectress” of
the Revelation at the outset of the Prophet’s career.

But let us return to the third enunciation of the ḥadīth, the

love of prayer. A frequently used canonical formula
proclaims that “prayer is better than sleep.” 11 The Quran
enjoins the Prophet to keep vigil part of the night in order to
give himself up to prayer, and this reference to the night
signifies far more than mere practical advice. More
profoundly, it means that knowledge is born in the night of
the soul, that is, in the perfect receptivity that is “poverty,”
“humility,” “extinction,” or vacare Deo; a gift can be given
only to a hand that is “below” and opened to what is above.

148
From another perspective, wisdom is a night compared with
the profane mentality, just as it is “folly” in the eyes of the
world. The same holds true, within the framework of religion,
for esoterism, which transcends religious, formal, and
psychological limitations. Thus, there is a certain
relationship—at once principial and historical—between the
Prophet’s nights of prayer and esoterism in Islam. This also
brings us back to the two caves of the Prophet, that of Mount
Ḥirāʾ, where he used to meditate prior to his mission, and the
cave of Thawr where during the hijrah he taught his
companion Abū Bakr the science of the Divine Name. Within
the same order of ideas, and preeminently, one should
mention the Laylat al-qadr and the Laylat al-miʿrāj, the Night
of the Descent of the Quran and the Night of the Ascension of
Muḥammad during the Night Journey.12

This vigil that God imposed upon His Messenger has two
contents, the recitation of the Revelation and the
remembrance of God: “Keep vigil a part of the night, a half
thereof or a little less or more thereof, and recite the Quran
with care. . . . Invoke the Name of thy Lord and devote
thyself with a total devotion” (LXXIII, 1–8). The difference
between the two practices—the recitation of the Quran and
the invocation of the Divine Name—is the difference between
the qualities and the essence, the formal and the non-formal,
the outward and the inward, thought and heart. And it is this
passage concerning the two nocturnal practices which
basically inaugurates the Sufic tradition. It is to be noted that
the recitation must be done “with care” (tartīlā), whereas the
invocation demands that the worshiper “devote himself
totally” (tabtīlā) to God. The first expression refers to the zeal
that satisfies the requirements of the formal place, and the
second, to the totality of dedication needed for the realization

149
of the supraformal element, this being the Essence, or the
immanent Unity.

The Names of the Prophet

The Prophet of Islam possesses 201 names and titles: the most
fundamental, those summarizing all the others, are the two
names Muḥammad and
Aḥmad, and next the designations or titles ʿAbd, Nabī, Rasūl,
and Ḥabīb.

The name Muḥammad designates more particularly the

mystery of Revelation, of the Descent (tanzīl), hence of the
Night of Destiny (Laylat al-qadr) during which this Descent
took place. The name Aḥmad designates correlatively the
mystery of the Ascension (miʿrāj), hence of the Night Journey
(Laylat al-miʿrāj), which transported the Prophet before the
Throne of Allah.

The title ʿAbd (“Servant”) refers to the quality of rigor (Jalāl)

and expresses the ontological and moral submission of the
creature to the Creator, hence “fear”; whereas the title Ḥabīb
(“Friend”) refers to the quality of gentleness or “beauty”
(Jamāl) and expresses, in contrast, the participation of the
deiform being in its Divine Prototype, hence “intimacy.”

The title Rasūl (“Messenger”) refers to the quality of activity

and expresses the affirmation of the True and the Good;
whereas the title Nabī (ummī) (“unlettered Prophet”) refers to
the quality of passivity and expresses receptivity with regard
to the heavenly gift.13 The first function relates to duty, and
the second to qualification.

150
Assimilation of the Prophetic Substance

The initiatory means of assimilating the Muḥammadan

Substance14 is the recitation of the Blessing on the Prophet
(ṣalāt ʿalaʾn-nabī) whose constituent terms indicate the
different modes or qualities of this Substance. These terms are
the following: ʿabd, rasūl, ṣalāt, and salām; “servant,”
“messenger,” “blessing,” and “peace.” Now the disciple, “he
who is poor before his Lord” (al-faqīr ilā rabbihi), must
realize the perfection of the ʿabd, following in the footsteps of
the Prophet, by a thorough consciousness of the relation
between contingent being and Necessary Being (Wujūd wājib
or muṭlaq), which is ipso facto Lord (Rabb); correlatively, the
perfect and normative man is “messenger,” that is to say,
“transmitter” of the Divine Message, by his radiation, for a
perfectly pure mirror necessarily reflects the light. This
precisely is expressed by the terms ṣalāt and salām—the
latter being the purity of the mirror, and the former, the ray of
light. Now purity is also a gift of God; it includes all the
receptive, stabilizing, preserving, and peace-giving graces.
Without it, as the Shaykh al-ʿAlawī pointed out, the soul
could not bear either to receive or to convey the “vertical,”
illuminative, and transformative graces offered by the Divine
Blessing (ṣalāt).

Other points of reference for the knowledge of the prophetic

nature are to be found in the words of the second testimony of
faith: Muḥammadun rasūl Allāh, “Muhammad is the
Messenger of God.” The first word—the name of the
Prophet—indicates immanence and, by way of consequence,
Union. The second word connotes the perfection of
conformity or of complementarity—one could say piety. And

151
the third—the Name Allah—indicates transcendence and
more especially the Muḥammadan knowledge of this mystery.

The Muḥammadan Substance is love of God combined, by

the nature of things, with contemplativeness and nobleness of
character, also with a sense for outward or practical values,
such as the beauty of forms, and cleanliness, or the rules of
propriety infused with generosity and dignity. The sense for
outward things—although in no wise “vain,” for all
that—comes, in the final analysis, from the emphasis on
“discernment” or from the element “truth.” For one who
discerns initially between the Absolute and the contingent,
between Necessary Being and possible being—and this is the
very content of the Shahādah—will readily apply analogous
discernments in the sphere of contingency. As for the sense of
beauty, it is related to the mystery of immanence.

It is from this Substance and its deepest dimensions, as we

have said, that Sufism draws its life, with a consistency that
sometimes contradicts—or seems to contradict—the general
formalism of Islam. Also the ʿulamāʾ, who are strangers to
Sufism, are all too prone to insist that it is contrary to
tradition, in which they are mistaken, though with extenuating
circumstances. The Sufi authors for their part affirm the
contrary—and sometimes with too much zeal, since
esoterism, although formally rooted in the traditional system,
constitutes by definition an independent domain, its essence
being situated outside all temporal or “horizontal” continuity.

We can liken the particular mode of inspiration and

orthodoxy that is esoterism to the rain falling vertically from
the sky, whereas the river—the common tradition—flows
horizontally in a continuous current. In other words, the

152
tradition springs from a source; it goes back to a given
founder of a religion, whereas esoterism refers in addition,
and even a priori, to an invisible filiation, one that in the Bible
is represented by Melchizedek, Solomon,15 and Elijah, and
which Sufism associates with al-Khiḍr, the mysterious
immortal.

Being identified with the Logos itself, the Prophetic

Substance coincides with the religion that is celestial,
subjacent, primordial, and universal: the religio perennis
whose sacred Book is the world of nature which encompasses
us, and is also our own soul, it being likewise made “in the
image of God.”16

Notes

1. “And in truth thou art of a supereminent nature (laʿala

khuluqin ʿaẓīm)” (LXVIII, 4); that is of a most exalted
character.

2. The great Algerian Sufi master of the present century.

3. Not that we must therefore accept the inadmissible

hypothesis of borrowings from Christianity and Hinduism.

4. When a believer is outside the Kaʿbah, be it near or far, he

prays toward it—hence toward one of its four walls. When he
is inside it, he must pray toward each of the cardinal points.

5. “Whomever God desires to guide, He expands his breast

for Islam” (VI, 126). “[Moses] said: My Lord, expand my
breast” (XX, 25). “Have We (God) not caused thy bosom [O
Prophet] to dilate?” (XCIV, 1).

153
6. By “mystery” we mean a spiritual reality to the extent that
it is rooted in the Divine Order.

7. “Those who believe and whose hearts are set at peace in

the remembrance of God. Is it not in the remembrance of God
that hearts find rest?” (XIII, 28). “O thou soul at peace!
Return unto thy Lord, well-pleased, well-pleasing”
(LXXXIX, 27–28).

8. This is not without connection with the principle of tithe or

sacrifice in general. In order to guarantee fertility, one must
not exhaust the divine gift.

9. It is always this Islam that we have in mind and not the

so-called revivals, which combine in a monstrous manner
Islamic formalism with modernist ideologies and tendencies.

10. It is from this drama of frustration and ingratitude, also

surrounding the sons of Fāṭimah and before all her husband,
that Shīʿism issues. The antagonism between persons is a
function of a providential and inevitable antagonism in
perspectives. Exclusivism and ostracism issuing from the
exoteric spirit do the rest.

11. The tathwīb pronounced at the time of the dawn (fajr)

prayers. Esoterically, sleep is profane heedlessness and prayer
spiritual awaking.

12. An analogous maxim to the tathwīb is the following

Quranic verse, which also refers to a “better” and a “here
below.” “In truth, the beyond is better for thee than the here
below” (XCIII, 4).

154
13. These two titles correspond, respectively, in the universal
order to the Supreme Pen (al-Qalam al-Aʿlā), which inscribes
the cosmic possibilities, and the Guarded Tablet (al-Lawḥ
al-Maḥfūẓ), upon which the possibilities are written.

14. Barakat Muḥammad, “the spiritual aura” of Muḥammad,

which is munificent and protecting. The terms al-nūr
al-muḥammadī and al-ḥaqīqat al-muḥammadiyyah refer with
different nuances to the Logos itself.

15. He also being “the King of Salem,” as his name indicates,

but presented in biblical history in his rapport with the
exo-esoteric antinomy.

16. In Quranic language the verses of the Quran and the

phenomena-symbols of nature are designated by the same
word, “signs” (āyāt). “We [God] shall show them our signs
upon the horizons and within themselves . . .” (XLI, 53).
There is an analogy between the macrocosm, the microcosm,
and revelation; all three manifest the “signs” of the Sovereign
Good.

155
156
 5

The Life, Traditions, and Sayings of the Prophet

Introduction

AS THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER HAS REVEALED, the

inner Substance of the Prophet is the hidden fountainhead of
Islamic spirituality. This inner reality manifests itself in the
life (Sīrah) of the person considered by Muslims to be the last
prophet and the perfect man par excellence, and also in his
actions (Sunnah) and sayings (aḥādīth). His beautiful names,
which traditionally are said to be 201, are chanted as litanies
and recited in certain spiritual exercises.1 Love for him flows
in the veins of all those who aspire to the spiritual life,2 and
emulation of the being called the “good model” (uswatun
ḥasanah) in the Quran characterizes the whole program of
Islamic spiritual life.

If love of God can be said to lie at the center of the spiritual

life, it must be asserted that no one can love God unless God
loves him, and God loves only the person who loves his
Prophet. Since the love of the Prophet is, therefore, a secret
key for the unlocking of the gates that open unto the Divine
Presence, it is an essential part of Islamic spirituality. His life,
as understood traditionally,3 is read by the devout throughout
their earthly journey in a thousand literary forms. His Sunnah
is not only a basis for the Divine Law but is also the model
that all those who aspire to spiritual realization seek to imitate
in their lives. The Ḥadīth, comprising his sayings, is the

157
supreme commentary upon the Quran and a treasury of
wisdom without the help of which one could not progress
upon the path of Divine Knowledge. The Prophet is the
infallible guide and the source of all spiritual guidance in
Islam; and his Sīrah, Sunnah, and Ḥadīth constitute the ship
that carries those who aspire to the spiritual life across the
waters of earthly existence to the shore of that land which
bathes in the Divine Presence.

158
159
I. The Life of the Prophet

JAʿFAR QASIMI

Historical Background

THE PROPHET MUḤAMMAD WAS A DIRECT

DESCENDANT of Ismāʿīl (2810 B.C. according to the
traditional calendar), whose father, Abraham (Ibrāhīm, 2900
B.C.), was the patriarch of monotheism and the father of both
the Jews and the Arabs.4 The seed of Abraham, who had long
been childless, was to be blessed through his two wives.
Sarah gave birth to Isaac (Isḥāq in Arabic), and Hagar (Hājar
in Arabic) to Ismāʿīl—or Ishmael, as he is known in the
Bible. Ismāʿīl was the elder of the two. His mother was an
Egyptian handmaid given to Abraham by Sarah when she was
seventy-six years old and he was eighty-five. Bitterness
ensued between the two wives and Hagar fled from the wrath
of her mistress, Sarah, and besought God’s help in her
distress. An angel of God appeared to her and said: “Behold,
thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his
name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction”
(Gen 16:10–11). Thereupon Hagar returned to Abraham and
Sarah and told them about her spiritual experience. In due
course, the promised child was born and named Ismāʿīl or
Ishmael, which means “God shall hear.”

When Ismāʿīl was thirteen years of age, another miracle took

place. Abraham received a divine message to the effect that
Sarah too would bear a son, and, fearing lest Ismāʿīl should
lose favor with God, Abraham prayed: “O that Ishmael might
live before Thee!” and God answered his prayer thus: “As for

160
Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him . . .
and I will make him a great nation” (Gen 17:20–21). Then
Isaac was born and was suckled by his own mother. When he
was weaned Abraham was advised by Sarah to take Hagar
and Ismāʿīl elsewhere. He took them to the valley of Becca
(Mecca) in Arabia and left them there. Hagar gave expression
to grave misgivings at being left alone in a barren valley, but
her mind was set at rest when Abraham told her that he was
leaving them there by themselves in obedience to a divine
command. There followed the miracle of Zamzam, the spring
that God caused to well up to quench the thirst of Ismāʿīl
when he was overcome by thirst and prayed for God’s help
while Hagar in her distress was passing seven times between
the two points of a rock in search of help. “And God heard the
voice of the lad; and the
angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her:
‘What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the
voice of the lad where he is. Arise and lift up the lad and hold
him in thy hand, for I will make him a great nation.’ And God
opened her eyes and she saw a well of water” (Gen
21:17–20). We are further told about Ishmael in the book of
Genesis: “And God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt
in the wilderness and became an archer.” There is further
mention of him in Psalm 84:5–6 as follows: “Blessed is the
man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the ways of
them who passing through the valley of Bacca make it a
well.”

Hagar and Ismāʿīl were later visited by Abraham. The father

and son built the Ka ʿbah together, at the site of the first house
of God on earth built, according to the Islamic tradition, by
Adam himself. After the completion of the sanctuary,
Abraham was commanded by God to institute the rite of

161
pilgrimage to Mecca: “Purify My House for those who go the
rounds of it, and who stand beside it and bow and make
prostration. And proclaim unto men the pilgrimage, that they
may come unto thee on foot and on every lean camel out of
every deep ravine” (Quran XXII, 26–27). Hagar’s search for
help in passing seven times between the two points, later to be
known as Ṣafā and Marwah, was commemorated and made
part of the rites of the Islamic pilgrimage, the Ḥajj. To this
day, every pilgrim to Mecca passes seven times between the
two points in remembrance of Hagar.

Mecca was not green and fertile like Hebron, and the Quran
contains a prayer of Abraham that reflects his intense love
and solicitude for the material and spiritual welfare of Ismāʿīl
and his progeny in this desolate land: “Verily I have settled a
line of mine offspring in a tilthless valley at Thy Holy House.
. . . Therefore incline unto them men’s hearts, and sustain
them with fruits that they may be thankful” (XIV, 37). Thanks
to Zamzam, the valley of Becca came now to be inhabited by
the tribe of Jurham, whose members were attracted by the
spring and settled there with the permission of Hagar. Ismāʿīl
grew among these people, spoke the Arabic language, and
became a great hunter. It must be added here that it was
Ismāʿīl who was offered in sacrifice and ransomed
miraculously by a ram prior to the birth of Isaac. Ismāʿīl was
until then the only son and, as such, was the sole beloved of
his father. That sacrifice continues to be commemorated by
the Muslims every year in the month of the Ḥajj. No such
sacrifice is celebrated in the Jewish tradition.

As already indicated, the Quran makes ample mention of the

construction of the Kaʿbah by Abraham and Ismāʿīl. They
prayed to God to accept their service: “Our Lord! Accept this

162
service from us. And Thou, only Thou, are the Hearer, the
Knower. Our Lord, make us Muslims, bowing to Thy will,
and of our progeny a people Muslim, bowing to Thy (will),
and show us our ways of worship and turn to us in Mercy” (II,
125–28). They further prayed: “Our Lord! And raise up
amongst them a messenger from among them who shall recite
to them Thy revelations, and shall teach them the Book and
Wisdom and shall purify them. Verily Thou art the Mighty,
the Wise” (II, 129).

The Kaʿbah brought great honor and comfort to the people of

Mecca, who were eventually to be ruled by the Qurayshites,
from among the Arab descendants of Abraham. This came
about much later. Ismāʿīl was succeeded by his eldest son
Nabīṭ as the custodian of the Kaʿbah. When he died, the
Jurhamites took over the custody; but because of their
oppressive ways they were driven back to Yemen, from
which they had originated. The feat was accomplished by the
combined efforts of the Banū Kinānah and Banū Khuzah
tribes. However, through the instrumentality of a leader of the
latter tribe, the idol Hubal was brought to and set up at the
Kaʿbah. By and by the number of idols increased and the
most sacred center of monotheism came to be infested with
idol worship. Assisted by the Banū Kinānah, Quṣayy ibn
Kilab became the master and lord of the Meccans. With the
advent of idolatry in the Kaʿbah, the descendants of Isaac
stopped visiting it.

Gradually the entire region suffered a terrible deprivation of

the monotheistic tradition and sank into the Age of Ignorance
(al-jāhiliyyah). People forgot God and succumbed to the
temptations of the world and of the lower self. The Arabian
peninsula remained in comparative isolation over the

163
centuries. Hardly any impact was left on it by the great events
of history, such as the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus and the
founding of the Persian Empire, the conquests of Alexander,
the foundation of the Roman Empire, the advent of
Christianity, the death throes of the ancient Egyptian
civilization, the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, and
the founding of the Byzantine Empire and its constant battles
with the Persians to the east. Still trade and pilgrimage
remained the two chief windows on the world for Arabia.

The Family of the Prophet

The Quraysh, a subdivision of the Banū Kinānah, became the

most influential and aristocratic tribe of Arabia. The Quraysh
constituted the immediate tribe of the Prophet Muḥammad,
for he belonged to the Banū Hāshim, a branch of the Quraysh.
Hāshim, the patriarch of the family, was a noble and generous
soul who traded widely even as far as Syria and Yemen. His
son ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was the grandfather of the Prophet. To
him went the privilege of apportioning the water of Zamzam
and he also
served as the custodian of the Kaʿbah, which was still widely
revered despite the taint of idolatry. He treated the pilgrims as
God’s visitors and guests and urged the Qurayshites to behave
as God’s neighbors and the people of His house, and he was
generous to the pilgrims. In this he was following the
example set by his illustrious father Hāshim and uncle
Muṭṭalib, whom he surpassed in feeding and watering the
pilgrims.

ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s mother was Salmā, who came from

Yathrib, an oasis town and one of the first main halts of the
summer caravans of the Qurayshites. Yathrib was inhabited

164
by prosperous Jews and controlled by an Arab tribe from
South Arabia. The Arabs of Yathrib later branched into the
two tribes of Aws and Khazraj under the two sons of Qaylah,
one of their ancestors under a matriarchal tradition. Salmā
belonged to Khazraj and was the daughter of ʿAmr, of the
clan of Najjār. She married Hāshim on the condition that she
would remain in complete control of her affairs in Yathrib,
which she would not leave. She gave birth to a son who was
named Shaybah and who remained in Yathrib until the age of
fourteen. Hāshim accepted the arrangement and used to stay
with Salmā and his son on the way to Syria and on his return.
However, Hāshim did not live long, and after an illness
during his last journey he died at Gaza in Palestine. Hāshim’s
younger brother Muṭṭalib visited Salmā and persuaded her to
let Shaybah accompany him to Mecca so that he could
succeed to the paternal estate and traditional honor as a
possible chief of the Quraysh. Muṭṭalib took Shaybah with
him on the back of the same camel that he rode. When they
entered Mecca, people took Shaybah to be a slave of Muṭṭalib
and called him so, namely, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, despite the
protestations of Muṭṭalib.

ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib soon came into his own. He succeeded in

securing his rights after a dispute with his uncle Nawfal. In
this he received help both from Muṭṭalib, who was his
guardian uncle, and his maternal relatives in Yathrib. He had
been looked upon as a young man of great promise and he
amply justified the hopes raised by that promise. A few years
elapsed and then Muṭṭalib died. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib became the
undisputed chieftain of his clan and, as has already been
mentioned, he excelled both his father and guardian uncle in
feeding and providing water for the pilgrims to the Kaʿbah.
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was blessed with abundance and was also

165
favored with the gift of true visions. It may be recalled that,
when the Jurhamites committed excesses and were driven out
of Mecca, they sealed and concealed the spring of Zamzam
partly as a scorched-earth policy and partly in the hope of
returning to Mecca in triumph and rediscovering it. That was
not to be.

In contrast, ʿAbd Muṭṭalib clung to the Kaʿbah and made his

permanent seat there. One night he was sleeping in the Hijr at
the north corner of the
holy house when he heard a visitor urging him to “dig sweet
clarity.” The visitor vanished but returned the following night
urging ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib this time to “dig beneficence.” Each
time the dreamer asked what it was that he was required to
dig but received no answer. The same vision recurred the
third night and asked ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib to “dig the treasured
hoard,” and he again asked the visitor to be specific. The
fourth night there was a clear command to “dig Zamzam,”
and there were detailed directions concerning how and where
to locate the old and hidden site of Zamzam. With the help of
his son Ḥārith and two pickaxes and despite the passive
opposition of the onlookers, he succeeded in striking the
well’s stone covering and eventually in digging out the
treasure buried there along with certain other profane objects.
Whatever was dug out was distributed by casting lots for each
object. Certain objects went to form part of the treasury of the
Kaʿbah. Some went to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib himself but the
Quraysh in general received nothing.

166
5. “Arrival of the Prophet in paradise during his nocturnal
journey at the door of the gate leading to Eden,” Supplement
Turc 190, Folio 47v.

During the tense moments when the crowd in the Kaʿbah was
imploring ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib to desist from committing what
they considered to be a sacrilege, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was
depressed by the thought that he had only one son, and that,
unlike his cousin Umayyah or for that matter Mughīrah each
one of whom was blessed with many sons, he felt very lonely.
He felt that if he too had been blessed with many sons nobody
would have had the audacity to criticize his well-meant effort
to retrieve Zamzam. So with great intensity and earnestness,
he prayed to God to bless him with ten sons, making a vow at
the time that if his prayer were granted and if all of his sons
grew safely to manhood, he would sacrifice one of them to
God at the Kabbah. Although it seemed a remote possibility,

167
God did answer his prayer and blessed him with ten sons with
the passage of time. ʿAbd Allāh was the youngest. He
happened to be the most handsome as well as his dearest son.
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was a pious man and a man of his word. He
cast lots to find out which of his sons he should sacrifice. The
lots were cast and to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s great horror it was
ʿAbd Allāh’s arrow that came out. But he did not demur and
set about to take his vow to its logical conclusion. But the
women of the household and their close relatives, particularly
those of Fāṭimah, the mother of ʿAbd Allāh, his two real
brothers, Zubayr and Abū Ṭālib, and five real sisters would
not let the venerable chief use the sacrificial knife. They
urged him to offer a sacrifice instead, and they offered to part
with their entire property as ransom.

ʿAbd Muṭṭalib was most willing to offer some other sacrifice

and he overcame his scruples only after consulting a wise
woman in Yathrib. He undertook the journey only to find that
she had gone to Khaybar. Eventually he found her and she
came out with her answer after consulting her familiar
spirits. She advised ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib to put ʿAbd Allāh and
ten camels of the usual bloodwite side by side and cast lots
between them. If the result was unfavorable, he was to go on
adding more camels and cast lots again until God accepted the
camels and spared the favorite son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. They
cast lots again and again, and each time the arrow said that
the camels should live and that ʿAbd Allāh should die. When
the number of camels reached a hundred, the unfavorable
result was reversed. As an exceedingly scrupulous man, ʿAbd
al-Muṭṭalib cast the final lot thrice, and having made certain
that the camels were acceptable to God as his dear son’s
ransom, he ordered the camels to be duly sacrificed.

168
Once ʿAbd Allāh was reprieved, his father determined to find
a wife for his son. He chose Āminah, the daughter of Wahb, a
grandson of Zuhrah, the brother of Qusayy. Wahb had died
and his brother Wuhayb succeeded him as the chief of Zuhrah
some years previously. As guardian of Āminah, he approved
and accepted the match. He also agreed to give his own
daughter Hālah in marriage to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib himself. The
double wedding was arranged to take place at the same time.

On the appointed day, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib took his son by the

hand and they set off together for the dwellings of the Banū
Zuhrah. On the way, they had to pass the dwellings of the
Banū Asad; and it so happened that Qutaylah, the sister of
Waraqah, was standing at the entrance of her house, perhaps
deliberately, in order to see what could be seen, for everyone
in Mecca knew of the great wedding that was about to take
place. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was now over seventy years old, but
he was still remarkably young for his age in every respect.
The slow approach of the two bridge-grooms and their natural
grace enhanced by the solemnity of the occasion was indeed
an impressive sight. But as they drew near, Qutaylah had eyes
only for the younger man. ʿAbd Allāh was the Joseph of his
times as far as beauty was concerned. Even the oldest men
and women of Quraysh could not remember having seen his
equal. He was now in his twenty-fifth year in the full flower
of his youth. But Qutaylah was struck above all—as she had
been on other occasions, but never so much as now—by the
radiance which lit his face and which seemed to her to shine
from beyond this world. Could it be that ʿAbd Allāh was the
expected prophet? Or was he to be the father of the prophet?

They had now just passed her, and overcome by a sudden

impulse she said “O ʿAbd Allāh.” His father let go his hand as

169
if to tell him to speak to his cousin. ʿAbd Allāh turned back to
face her and she asked him where he was going. “With my
father,” he said simply, not out of reticence but because he
felt sure that she must know that he was on his way to his
wedding. “Take me here and now as thy wife,” she said, “and
thou shalt have as many
camels as those that were sacrificed in thy stead.” “I am with
my father,” he replied. “I cannot act against his wishes, and I
cannot leave him.”5

The marriages took place according to plan and the two

couples stayed some days in the house of Wuhayb. During
that time, ʿAbd Allāh went to fetch something from his own
house, and again he met Qutaylah, the sister of Waraqah. Her
eyes searched his face with such earnestness that he stopped
beside her expecting her to speak. When she remained silent,
he asked her why she did not say to him what she had said to
him the day before. She answered him saying: “The light hath
left thee that was with thee yesterday. Today thou canst not
fulfil the need I had of thee.”6

The Birth of the Prophet

Within a few months of the marriage ʿAbd Allāh had died of

an illness. Āminah gave birth to Muḥammad on the 12th of
Rabīʿ al-Awwal in the year of the Elephant, 2 August A.D.
570. It must be remembered that according to tradition, God
Himself had given the glad tidings of the birth of Ismāʿīl and
had promised to bless his seed. Ismāʿīl and his mother Hagar
had to undergo much suffering. They were subjected to
separation from the land of their origin and were compelled to
live in the wilderness. Then came the favor of Zamzam, the
reconstruction of the Kaʿbah, and the emergence of the Arabs.

170
But this people that had descended from Ismāʿīl lived in
comparative aloofness from the world and had not yet entered
the stage of world history. The Arabs possessed the virtues of
hospitality and chivalry, of courage and self-sacrifice, of
eloquence and love of liberty, of retentive memory and
authenticity of genealogy. But also on the negative side there
was their forgetfulness of their Divine Origin and mission,
their surrender to wild passions, their terrible pride and
class-consciousness. Their destiny had not as yet been
fulfilled and awaited the birth of the Last Prophet, who was to
unify them and make of them a great nation.

The Prophet’s birth in Mecca was welcomed by his

grandfather, who took him into the Kaʿbah, where he gave
thanks for the noble birth and named his grandson
Muḥammad, the praised one—and, indeed, mankind was to
sing his praises throughout the ages. He who experienced the
loneliness of an orphan was the recipient of immeasurable
love from his grandfather, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, as well as from
his uncle, Abū Ṭālib. He was suckled by Ḥalīmah of the tribe
of Banū Saʿd in the pure surroundings of the desert, the vast
and white desert, gentle and rigorous, reflecting the infinitude
and transcendence of God and manifesting His infinite
nearness and immanence. The boy Muḥammad learned
beautiful and clear Arabic there amongst the Banū Saʿd. He
learned to appreciate the dignity of labor
and the importance of earning one’s livelihood by the sweat
of one’s brow. He worked as a shepherd and had initial
lessons in tending flock, a flock that was a symbol of the
entire creation. He learned to suffer, to endure, to be
self-reliant, to think freely and methodically, to absorb the
melody and rhythm of the universe, to see through the veil of
relativity, suffering, and transience that which is beautiful,

171
everlasting, and immortal. He experienced the magic of the
sunrise, the scented sweetness and coolness of morning
breeze, the intense heat of the scorching sun. He sought
refuge in solitude and was mysteriously plunged in God. He
was deepened, made firm, filled with grace.

Upon leaving the Banū Saʿd and returning to his family, the
young Muḥammad became very much attached to his uncle
Abū Ṭālib, whom he accompanied on journeys to Syria. It
was there that he had his first direct contact with the Christian
monk Bahīrah and was given by him the confirmation of his
inner stirrings. Here, the inner equilibrium Muḥammad had
attained by deep meditation as well as by long periods of
solitude was rendered meaningful and comprehensible by the
glad tidings of the monk Bahīrah, who at the same time
emphasized the need to protect the lad.

With adolescence far behind him, Muḥammad was a most

handsome young man of thirty-five when the Kaʿbah was
once again being rebuilt and a dispute arose over who should
replace the black stone. They all agreed to accept the
arbitration of Muḥammad, who had by now earned the titles
of the True and the Trustworthy. He spread out his mantle on
the floor, placed the stone on it, asked the various Qurayshite
chiefs to take hold of the ends of the mantle and carry it to the
point where the stone was to be restored. Then he lifted up the
stone himself and installed it there. Not very long before this,
he had subscribed to a charitable scheme for the protection of
the unprotected. He was moved by the same spirit of saving
life, of promoting harmony without sacrificing the truth.

As a young man, Muḥammad entered into the employment of

Khadījah bint Khuwaylid, who, after the death of her father in

172
the battle of Fijar at the age of thirty, had managed his affairs
for ten long years on her own. She had been deeply impressed
by the honesty, competence, and excellence of character of
Muḥammad. Finally, upon his return from a successful
journey on her behalf in Syria, she offered herself in marriage
to him through her friend Nufaysah. After a certain
reluctance, caused chiefly by his lack of means, he agreed to
marry her. The Prophet was twenty-five, and Khadījah was
forty years of age and had been twice widowed. Nevertheless,
the nobles of Mecca coveted her hand because of her beauty,
nobility, and wealth. When Muhammad visited her after the
acceptance of the
proposal, Khadījah addressed him in these words: “Son of
mine uncle, I love thee for thy kinship with me, and for that
thou art ever in the centre, not being a partisan amongst the
people for this or for that; and I love thee for thy
trustworthiness and for the beauty of thy character and the
truth of thy speech.”7

Muḥammad began his new life by leaving the house of his

uncle Abū Ṭālib and going to the house of Khadījah. On the
day of their wedding, he set free Barakah, the female slave he
had inherited from his father. Khadījah made a gift of a new
slave to him. He was named Zayd and was aged fifteen. Zayd
was of noble ancestry, belonging to the great northern tribe of
Kalb. His father was named Ḥārithah, and his mother
belonged to an equally illustrious tribe of Ṭayy. During a visit
to his mother’s tribe, Zayd was taken prisoner in a raid by
some horsemen of the Banū Qayn, who sold him into slavery
at the great fair at ʿUkāẓ. There he was bought by Khadījah’s
nephew, Ḥākim ibn Ḥizam, who presented him to Khadījah.
Zayd managed to send news of himself to his parents through
Kalbite pilgrims. When his father and uncle came to reclaim

173
the lad in return for any ransom requested, Zayd was asked to
choose whether to return home or to remain with Muḥammad.
He chose Muḥammad, who had agreed to set him free for no
ransom. The Kalbites were furious with Zayd for having
chosen slavery over the freedom he could have had with his
father and his family. “It is even so,” said Zayd, “for I have
seen from this man such things that I could never choose
another above him.”8

The household of Muḥammad and Khadījah attracted many

kindred spirits. She understood and respected her husband’s
ever-increasing inclination for solitude. Gradually he began to
consecrate a certain number of nights and days to divine
worship. His favorite retreat was a cave in Mount Ḥirāʾ, not
very far from the outskirts of Mecca.

Retreat was an age-old practice among certain descendants of

Ismāʿīl. It was called taḥannuth in Arabic, signifying
abstention from sin and devotion to God, a time spent in
meditation. Taḥannuth also signified an inversion of the soul,
a deliberate turning of one’s back on the world and its
commotion. Muḥammad’s inherent sobriety, contemplative
nature, and inner equilibrium were evident in his desire for
solitude. There was no self-mortification, no excessive
fasting, but rather he would take with him provisions and
would return for more when these ran out. Occasionally
Khadījah joined him. During these few years of periods of
retreat, Muḥammad would be greeted by inanimate objects
around him such as stones and trees. “Peace be on thee, O
Messenger of God” was the usual greeting as recorded by
such traditional sources as al-Bukhārī.

174
6. “The Mirāj of the Prophet,” Persian Miniature.

The traditional retreat was normally made during the month

of Ramaḍān, and it was in this month, in his fortieth year, that
an angel in human form appeared to Muḥammad while he
was alone in the cave and bade him to recite (iqraʾ). The man

175
who had just been chosen as the Prophet of God answered
that he could not, whereupon the angel embraced him in an
overwhelming embrace and then released him. This happened
thrice and Muḥammad then recited the first verses of the
Quran repeating after the angel. It was as if the words were
inscribed upon his heart. Overwhelmed by the experience,
Muḥammad now Prophet came back home and asked his wife
to cover him with a cloth because he was shivering. When he
had described to her his experience, she reassured him by
affirming his superior qualities of kindness, generosity, and
nobility of spirit. She assured him that God would never
abandon him. Her words of consolation were in response to
the Prophet’s apprehensions that under the impact of Divine
Revelation either he would lose his reason or life or be
confronted with the tremendous responsibility that
prophethood was to entail. Khadījah also took the Prophet to
a Qurayshite sage who was deeply immersed in the Christian
tradition. He confirmed the Divine Nature of the Prophet’s
experience and predicted the trials and tribulations attendant
upon his prophetic mission.

The first verses of the Quran revealed in this manner were:

Recite: In the Name of thy Lord who created, created Man of a blood-clot.

Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the Pen, taught
Man that he knew not.” (XCVI, 1–5)

Following the first Revelation of the first verses the angel

Gabriel taught the Prophet to perform the ablutions and the
daily prayers in their nascent stage.

The first three years following the first Revelation were

devoted to secret preaching. The first followers were

176
Khadījah, the Prophet’s wife; ʿAlī, the Prophet’s cousin, who
was then just a young boy; Abū Bakr, a personal friend and a
trader by profession; and Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, the freed slave
who had preferred the Prophet to his parents. These were
followed by Bilāl, the slave from Ethiopia, ʿAmr ibn
Unaysah, and Khālid ibn Saʿīd ibn ʿĀṣ and others. The
Prophet was now required to warn his own kith and kin and
afterward to preach openly. When he took to the streets, fairs,
and nearby tribes, persecution of his person and his followers
ensued. This persecution was to take many forms and was to
last for the next ten of the Prophet’s thirteen years in Mecca.
He was personally ridiculed, spat at, stoned, and otherwise
accosted during prayer. Two of his daughters were divorced
by their husbands as an attempted punitive measure. The
Meccans tried to dissuade him by means of worldly
temptations from preaching
Islam. They forced his uncle, Abū Ṭālib, to deprive the
Prophet of his protection and patronage. He suggested the
possibility to his nephew on account of his old age and
helplessness, being all alone, and received the well-known
answer: “O Uncle, if they place the Sun in my right hand and
the Moon in my left hand I will not desist from preaching. I
must complete my mission or perish in the process.” This
firm reply from the profusely weeping nephew moved the
uncle, who henceforth never wavered in support for him.

The Prophet and his followers were ostracized and banished

to Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib, where they subsisted for three long years
on the leaves of trees and whatever odd things they could
find. The injunction was lifted after three years, but the
persecution as such went on relentlessly. Some Muslim
families were forced to migrate to Abyssinia, where they
sought and secured refuge of the Christian king, the Negus.

177
The Meccans sent emissaries to retrieve the fugitives. Jaʿfar
ibn Abī Ṭālib pleaded the cause of the Muslims and won the
day. His speech at the court of the Negus is a classical
exposition of the cause of Islam:

O King, we were a people steeped in ignorance, worshipping idols, eating

unsacrificed carrion, committing abominations, and the strong would devour
the weak. Thus we were until God sent us a Messenger from out of our midst,
one whose lineage we knew, and his veracity and his worthiness of trust and
his integrity. He called us unto God, that we should testify to His Oneness
and worship Him and renounce what we and our fathers had worshipped in
the way of stones and idols; and he commanded us to speak truly, to fulfill
our promises, to respect the ties of kinship and the rights of our neighbors,
and to refrain from crimes and from bloodshed. So we worship God alone
setting naught beside Him, counting as forbidden what He hath forbidden and
as licit what He hath allowed. For these reasons have our people turned
against us, and have persecuted us to make us forsake our religion and revert
from the worship of God to the worship of idols. That is why we have come
to thy country, having chosen thee above all others; and we have been happy
in thy protection, and it is our hope, O King, that here, with thee, we shall not
suffer wrong.9

The preaching of Islam by the Prophet and the persecution of

his followers by his opponents went on until he was fifty
years of age, when he suffered the greatest tragedies of his
life in the loss of his wife, Khadījah, and his chief protector
and uncle, Abū Ṭālib, in quick succession. The year was
called the year of sorrows. His uncle Abū Lahab and the
latter’s wife were actively hostile to him. The rest of his tribe
extended some protection to him, but it did not suffice to save
him from the molestation of all and sundry. The Prophet’s
visit to Taif to teach and preach there brought him much
suffering. He was ridiculed and stoned and forced to seek
shelter in
an orchard whose owners shunned him personally despite
some hospitality offered through their slave. That was the

178
most trying day in the Prophet’s life, the day that inspired the
following prayer:

O God, to Thee I complain of my weakness, little resource, and loneliness

before men. O Most Merciful, Thou art the Lord of the weak, and Thou art
my Lord. To whom wilt Thou confide me? To one afar who will misuse me?
Or to an enemy to whom Thou hast given power over me? If Thou art not
angry with me I care not. Thy favour is more wide for me. I take refuge in the
light of Thy countenance by which the dark is illumined, and the things of
this world and the next are rightly ordered, lest Thy anger descend upon me
or Thy wrath light upon me. It is for Thee to be satisfied until Thou art well
pleased. There is no power and no might save in Thee.10

Spiritual relief and consolation came in the form of the

Prophet’s nocturnal Ascension in body and soul (al-miʿrāj) to
the heavens and finally to the Divine Presence, a miracle
incomprehensible to those who hold the modern world view.
He was taken from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there he
experienced gradual ascension through the hierarchy of being
to the outermost region of the cosmos “the Lote of the
Extreme Bounty” and then on to the Divine Proximity as
described in sura XVII, 1 of the Quran. In addition to direct
contact with previous apostles and prophets, he witnessed
paradise and hell and the beatitude and suffering of their
respective inhabitants. He saw falsehood in the form of a
stone, jealousy as a scorpion, greed as a mouse. He rode
Burāq, the white and speedy mythical horse. The angel
Gabriel accompanied and guided him but could not keep him
company once they reached the proximity of the Divine
Presence. The Night of Ascension (Laylat al-miʿrāj) was the
counterpart of the Night of Power (Laylat al-qadr), the night
when the Quran was first revealed. The Prophet received
many benedictions and spiritual privileges from the Divine
Presence. The final stage of this journey to the Divine

179
Proximity is described by a well-known traditional authority,
al-Suyūṭī in his al-Laʿālī al-maṣnūʿah as follows:

The Journey to the Divine Proximity

Now when I was brought on my Night Journey to the (place

of the) Throne and drew near to it, a green rafraf [narrow
piece of silk brocade] was let down to me, a thing too
beautiful for me to describe to you, whereat Gabriel advanced
and seated me on it. Then he had to withdraw from me,
placing his hands over his eyes, fearing lest his sight be
destroyed by the scintillating light of the Throne, and he
began to weep aloud, uttering tasbīḥ, taḥmīd and tathniya to
Allah. By Allah’s leave, as a sign of His mercy toward me
and the perfection of His favor to me, that rafraf floated me
into the (presence of the) Lord of the Throne, a thing too
stupendous for the tongue to tell of or imagination to picture.
My sight was so dazzled by it that I feared blindness.
Therefore, I shut my eyes, which was by Allah’s good favor.
When I thus veiled my sight, Allah shifted my sight (from my
eyes) to my heart, so with my heart I began to look at what I
had been looking at with my eyes. It was a light so bright in
its scintillation that I despair of ever describing to you what I
saw of His majesty. Then I besought my Lord to complete His
favor to me by granting me the boon of having a steadfast
vision of Him with my heart. This my Lord did, giving me
that favor, so I gazed at Him with my heart till it was steady
and I had a steady vision of Him.

There He was, when the veil had been lifted from Him, seated
on His Throne, in His dignity, His might, His glory, His
exaltedness, but beyond that it is not permitted me to describe
Him to you. Glory be to Him! How majestic is He! How

180
bountiful are His works! How exalted is His position! How
brilliant is His light! Then He lowered somewhat for me His
dignity and drew me near to Him, which is as He has said in
His book, informing you of how He would deal with me and
honor me: “One possessed of strength. He stood erect when
He was at the highest point of the horizon. Then He drew near
and descended, so that He was two bows’ lengths off, or even
nearer” (LIII, 6–9). This means that when He inclined to me
He drew me as near to Him as the distance between the two
ends of a bow, nay, rather, nearer than the distance between
the crotch of the bow and its curved ends. “Then He revealed
to His servant what he revealed” (v. 10), i.e., what matters He
had decided to enjoin upon me. “His heart did not falsify what
it saw” (v. 11), i.e., my vision of Him with my heart. “Indeed
he was seeing one of the greatest signs of his Lord” (v. 18).

Now when He—glory be to Him—lowered His dignity for

me He placed one of His hands between my shoulders and I
felt the coldness of His fingertips for a while on my heart,
whereat I experienced such a sweetness, so pleasant a
perfume, so delightful a coolness, such a sense of honor in
(being granted this) vision of Him, that all my terrors melted
away and my fears departed from me, so my heart became
tranquil. Then was I filled with joy, my eyes were refreshed,
and such delight and happiness took hold of me that I began
to bend and sway to right and left like one overtaken by
slumber. Indeed, it seemed to me as though everyone in
heaven and earth had died, for I heard no voices of angels, nor
during the vision of my Lord did I see any dark bodies. My
Lord left me there such time as He willed, then brought me
back to my senses, and it was as though I had been asleep and
had awakened. My mind returned to me and I was tranquil,

181
realizing where I was and how I was enjoying surpassing
favor and being shown manifest preference.

Then my Lord, glorified and praised be He, spoke to me,

saying: “O Muḥammad, do you know about what the Highest
Council is disputing?” I answered: “O Lord, Thou knowest
best about that, as about all things, for Thou art the One who
knows the unseen” (cf. V, 109/108). “They are disputing,” He
said, “about the degrees (darajāt) and the excellences. Do you
know, O Muḥammad, what the degrees and the excellences
are?” “Thou, O Lord,” I answered, “knowest better and art
more wise.” Then He said: “The degrees are concerned with
performing one’s ablutions at times when that is disagreeable,
walking on foot to religious assemblies, watching expectantly
for the next hour of prayer when one time of prayer is over.
As for the excellences, they consist of feeding the hungry,
spreading peace, and performing the tahajjud prayer at night
when other folk are sleeping.” Never
have I heard anything sweeter or more pleasant than the
melodious sound of His voice.

Such was the sweetness of His melodious voice that it gave

me confidence, and so I spoke to Him of my need. I said: “O
Lord, Thou didst take Abraham as a friend, Thou didst speak
with Moses face to face, Thou didst raise Enoch to a high
place, Thou didst give Solomon a kingdom such as none after
him might attain, and didst give to David the Psalter. What
then is there for me, O Lord?” He replied: “O Muḥammad, I
take you as a friend just as I took Abraham as a friend. I am
speaking to you just as I spoke face to face with Moses. I am
giving you the Fātiḥa (sura I) and the closing verses of
al-Baqara (II, 284–286), both of which are from the
treasuries of My Throne and which I have given to no prophet

182
before you. I am sending you as a prophet to the white folk of
the earth and the black folk and the red folk, to jinn and to
men thereon, though never before you have I sent a prophet to
the whole of them. I am appointing the earth, its dry land and
its sea, for you and for your community as a place for
purification and for worship. I am giving your community the
right to booty which I have given as provision to no
community before them. I shall aid you with such terrors as
will make your enemies flee before you while you are still a
month’s journey away. I shall send down to you the Master of
all Books and the guardian of them, a Quran which We
Ourselves have parceled out (XVII, 106/107). I shall exalt
your name for you (XCIV, 4), even to the extent of
conjoining it with My name, so that none of the regulations of
My religion will ever be mentioned without you being
mentioned along with Me.”

Then after this He communicated to me matters which I am

not permitted to tell you, and when He had made His
covenant with me and had left me there such time as He
willed, He took His seat again upon His Throne. Glory be to
Him in His majesty, His dignity, His might. Then I looked,
and behold, something passed between us and a veil of light
was drawn in front of Him, blazing ardently to a distance that
none knows save Allah, and so intense that were it to be rent
at any point it would burn up all Allah’s creation. Then the
green rafraf on which I was descended with me, gently rising
and falling with me in ʿIlliyun [ʿIlliyun is said to be the
highest of all celestial regions] till it brought me back to
Gabriel, who took me from it. Then the rafraf mounted up till
it disappeared from my sight.11

183
After such an overwhelming experience, during which he was
declared to be inwardly the synthesis of all previous
messengers and was granted assurances of Divine Succour
and Glory, the Prophet was naturally reluctant to leave the
Divine Presence and to return to the world of relativity and
passion. He was, however, promised before his return to earth
that he and his followers would experience the ecstasy of
ascension in divine worship. That is why the daily prayers are
called the miʿrāj of the faithful.

Subsequent to the return of the Prophet from the Ascension,

the Meccans became all the more baffled and enraged. Their
hostility now knew no bounds and the stage was set for the
Prophet and his followers to migrate to Yathrib, which
afterward acquired the name of Medina, (Madīnat al-nabī or
Madīnat al-rasūl, the City of the Prophet or the City of the
Messenger).

184
7. Torture reserved for the proud. Scene of the visit of the
Prophet to hell during his mirāj,” Supplement Turc 190, Folio
63v.

Migration to Medina

185
Gradually and secretly the Muslims left Mecca for Medina.
The Prophet was among the last to leave. His companion Abū
Bakr had kept two noble she-camels in anticipation of the
occasion. The Prophet insisted on paying the price of the one
he chose for his personal use. They left Mecca one night and
concealed themselves for three nights in the cave of Thawr,
where they had a narrow miraculous escape from the close
searching by the Meccans, who were in hot pursuit. But as
God had willed, the Prophet and his companion Abū Bakr,
who henceforth became known as the “Companion of the
Cave,” eventually reached Yathrib safely.

The Prophet’s cousin ʿAlī, “the Lion of Allāh,” was left

behind to sleep in the Prophet’s bed on the night of migration
and had the most sound sleep of his life despite the danger
facing him. Because of his well-known honesty and
trustworthiness, he had instructions to return the goods that
people had deposited with the Prophet.

The converts to Islam belonging to the tribes of Aws and

Khazraj came to be known as the Helpers. They had
contacted the Prophet secretly and made two pledges to him
at al-ʿAqabah to undertake to protect the Prophet as they
would their families and children. Islam had penetrated
Yathrib and new converts were being methodically educated
and trained in the tenets and practices of Islam. The tribes of
Aws and Khazraj were able to shed their mutual animosity
because of Islam, which prepared the ground for the Prophet
to establish himself in Medina. The Prophet had a brief stay at
Quba, where he was ultimately joined by ʿAlī, and then
moved to Medina proper, where he spent some six months as
a guest of Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī until his mosque and quarters

186
were completed. Among the first orations at Medina was one
that included the following teachings:

Love what God loves. Love God with all your hearts and weary not of the
Word of God and its mention. Harden not your hearts from it. Worship God
and associate naught with him; fear Him as he ought to be feared; carry out
loyally towards God what you say with your mouths. Love one another in the
Spirit of God.

On two occasions, the Prophet instituted a formal brotherhood

between certain pairs of the migrants and the Helpers, which
made the former’s financial rehabilitation possible and
strengthened the latter spiritually through making sacrifices
for the former. The Prophet himself took ʿAlī, the Lion of
God and the Lion of His Messenger, by the hand and said:
“This is my brother.” Ḥamzah, his uncle, took Zayd ibn
Ḥārithah, the Prophet’s freedman, as his brother and heir.

All the Muslims now acknowledged the spiritual as well as

the temporal
authority of the Prophet, who endeavored to enter into treaty
relationships with the Jewish tribes of Medina, Banū Naḍīr,
Banū Qurayẓah, and Banū Qaynuqāʾ. This “constitution of
Medina” recognized the rights of Jews to practice their
religion and to have their property protected and laid down
reciprocal obligations in peace and war. It described the
signatory groups to the agreement as one community who
were to help one another in case of foreign aggression and
were themselves to bear the expenses they incurred. Piety and
loyalty were to stand in the way of treachery. The wronged
were to be helped, and the unjust and the sinners were not to
be protected. The constitution of Medina has remained a
model for Islamic society throughout Islamic history and
contains the universal perspective of Islam, which is capable

187
of coping with all eventualities in both the individual and
collective life of man.

After the death of Khadījah in Mecca, the Prophet had

married Sawdah and was betrothed to ʿĀʾishah, the daughter
of Abū Bakr. She was then a minor. Among the important
events soon after the hijrah to Yathrib was the formal
declaration of her marriage to the Prophet on her attaining
puberty.

The Fast of Ramaḍān and Zakāt

Fasting during Ramaḍān was made obligatory eighteen

months after the hijrah. Ṣawm, or fasting, constitutes the third
of the five pillars of Islam after the two attestations—of
God’s Unity and the prophethood of Muḥammad—and the
five daily prayers. Ramaḍān signifies the burning up of
impurities through abstention from eating and drinking even
lawful food. It creates the sense of love for other human
beings and piety among those who fast sincerely. It also
inculcates gratitude among the fasters. The Prophet was a
great faster, undertaking supererogatory fasts during most of
the year in addition to the obligatory fasting during Ramaḍān.

About the same time the fourth pillar of Islam, namely, zakāt,
which is an obligatory religious tax, was instituted. “And in
their wealth, is the right of the needy and of those who are
deprived of the means of subsistence” (LI, 19). This Quranic
injunction shows that the recipient of charity received it as a
matter of right and not as a dole.

The Prophet while in Mecca prayed in the direction of

Jerusalem. He was now ordered by God to turn to Mecca. The

188
Divine Injunction came while the Prophet was leading the
congregational prayers. Everybody turned toward the Kaʿbah
in Mecca with reverence. It evinced immense unity among the
Muslims and also absolute obedience to the Prophet. Among
new converts there were insincere people who had secret
reservations about
Islam and who came to be known as hypocrites (munāfiqūn).
This group and certain of the Jews who were adversaries of
Islam protested against this change. There were other Jews,
however, who remained well disposed to the Prophet despite
the changing of the qiblah. Mukhayriq was one of them. He
was a learned rabbi who remained faithful to Judaism. Yet he
fought and died for the Muslims in the battle of Uḥud and
willed his property to be inherited by the Prophet, who
distributed it as alms among the needy in Medina.

Jihād

The hijrah marked a new phase in the Prophet’s life, making

fresh and altogether new demands, which—thanks to his
versatility and perfection—were fulfilled. Yathrib contained
different elements. It had believers like the migrant Muslims
and the Helpers. But there were also the hypocrites and the
hostile Jews ready to make alliance with the enemies of Islam
in Mecca and elsewhere. Like the human soul standing in
need of purification and perfection, Yathrib needed to be
purified and perfected and eventually to be converted into
Medina, the City of the Prophet. In addition to various
spiritual and moral practices, the institution of jihād was
instrumental in effecting the transformation. Jihād signifies
primarily striving on all levels; fighting is only one form of
that striving. The Prophet is reported to have said after
returning from the battlefield: “We have returned from the

189
lesser holy war (jihād) to the greater holy war.” The greater
jihād is to be waged against the lower self. Even the fighting
on the battlefield had to have noble, spiritual causes and
justification. According to Ibn Kathīr, the first Divine
Injunction on the lesser jihād or qitāl is embodied in the
chapter on the pilgrimage:12

Leave is given to those who are fought against, because they have been
oppressed—and verily to succour them Allāh is potent—those who have been
unjustly driven forth from their abodes merely because they say: “Our Lord is
Allāh.” And were it not for God’s repelling of some by means of others,
cloisters and churches, synagogues and mosques, wherein the Name of God
is mentioned much, would have been pulled down. Surely God shall succour
whosoever succoureth Him. Verily, God is strong, mighty. They are those
who, if we establish them in the land, establish the Prayer and give the
poor-rate and enjoin right and forbid wrong, and unto God is the end of all
affairs. (XXII, 39–41)

Quranic passages like II, 251, IV, 75–76, and VIII, 39, read in
conjunction with the above passage, make the picture
complete. Muslims were required to fight in the way of God
against those who fought against them, and they
were not to transgress the limit. They were to spare the aged,
women, children, people in religious orders, and those fleeing
from battle. They were required to be God-fearing and kind
under all conditions.

The practice of jihād was necessitated by the situation in

which the young Muslim community found itself in Medina.
The Prophet and his followers in Medina were not left in
peace. In the second year after the hijrah, the battle of Badr,
which was decisive in the life of the new religion, took place.
The Muslims were considerably outnumbered, but with divine
help they were able to inflict decisive defeat on the Meccan
enemy. Abū Jahl, the formidable enemy of Islam, was killed.

190
The victory, which is considered traditionally to have been
made possible by direct Divine Intervention, fortified the
Islamic community. The Muslims set an excellent example of
human treatment of the prisoners of war for later generations
to follow.

The Meccans smarted under the defeat and tried to avenge

themselves upon the Muslims in the year 3 A.H. by mustering
a much larger army of three thousand men. Betrayed by a
group of hypocrites in their ranks, the Muslims fought
valiantly at first, but they suffered reverses during this second
major military encounter with the Meccans, the battle of
Uḥud. The companions posted to guard a mountain pass
deserted their position in anticipation of imminent victory, in
violation of the Prophet’s command. Khālid ibn Walīd, still
on the Meccan side, took advantage of this disastrous error
and routed the Muslims. The Prophet was wounded, and his
uncle Ḥamzah was martyred. There were serious casualties on
both sides. The Meccans did not, however, complete their
rout of the Muslims and went back to Mecca. The Muslims
rallied around the Prophet, and a large group of Muslims led
by the great warrior, the chivalrous ʿAlī, gave chase to the
enemy and set an excellent example of defiance in defeat.

In the year 5 A.H., the Meccans attacked Medina with an

unprecedented show of strength and determination with a
large contingent of nineteen thousand men. Salman, a man of
Persian origin who was one of the first converts to Islam,
advised the Prophet to have ditches dug around the city. This
successful military strategy gave the name of the Battle of the
Ditch (al-Khandaq) to this war. A series of diplomatic moves
against the Meccans and abnormal weather conditions
contributed to their frustration and ultimate retreat. This

191
victory added considerably to the prestige of the new Islamic
community at Medina.

At the end of the year 6 A.H., the Muslims, led by the

Prophet, set out for Mecca to make the lesser pilgrimage or
ʿUmrah. They were not heavily armed for battle and their
intentions were peaceful. Nevertheless, their entry into Mecca
was barred by the Quraysh. The Prophet sent ʿUthmān
ibn ʿAffān as an emissary to Mecca; when he failed to return,
the Muslims, sensing acute danger, made allegiance with the
Prophet under a tree and promised to fight until death. This
vow of allegiance under the tree was later to serve as a
prototype for the Sufi rite of initiation. Be that as it may,
direct confrontation with the Meccans was averted. The pact
of Huḍaybiyyah was concluded, stipulating the Muslims’
immediate return to Medina with permission to have direct
access to the sanctuary at Mecca. There was a further
humiliating condition to the effect that deserters from Mecca
were to be returned to the Meccans, whereas those defeated
from Medina could be retained by the Meccans. The treaty
was to last for ten years. The Muslims were deeply distressed
and depressed. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was audacious enough
to approach the Prophet and give vent to their frustration. The
Prophet was adamant, and the truce turned out to be a
blessing in disguise, an act of great statesmanship on the part
of the Prophet. The Quran described this truce as a clear
victory, which it soon proved to be.

In the year 7 A.H., the Muslims subjugated the Jewish settlers

of Khaybar after they broke their pact with the Muslims. Until
then the Jews, being “People of the Book,” were spared
expulsion and granted the privilege of paying jizyah, a special
religious tax, in return for the protection of their property and

192
religion by the state. Subsequently, Christians, Sabaeans,
Zoroastrians, and under special circumstances also Hindus
were granted the status of “People of the Book.” The victory
at Khaybar was due chiefly to the consistent and exemplary
courage of ʿAlī, the ever-victorious warrior, who had taken
part in every battle except that of Tabūk. At that time, he had
represented the Prophet at Medina, who had likened him to
Aaron with regard to Moses with the difference that
Muḥammad, unlike Moses, was the final prophet. In the same
year the Prophet sent epistles to the emperors of Persia and
Byzantium and to the kings of Abyssinia and the Copts,
inviting them to join the fold of Islam.

In the year 8 A.H., the Prophet made the lesser pilgrimage to

Mecca peacefully, in accordance with the terms of the
agreement of Huḍaybiyyah. The Muslims rejoiced at the
opportunity. Important figures like Khālid ibn Walīd and
ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ embraced Islam. Certain others like Abū
Sufyān, the Umayyad and leader of the Quraysh, set about
establishing secret rapport with the Muslims without loss of
face.

Subsequent to the violation of the treaty of Huḍaybiyyah by

the Meccans, the Prophet set out for Mecca with a sizable
army comprising the migrants, the Helpers, and the bedouins.
The ruler of Medina was now aware that he had the Meccans,
his persecutors and oppressors for twenty years, at his mercy.
He entered Mecca triumphantly, granted all his former
enemies amnesty, and tried to win them over with
magnanimity. The new converts
were to receive special material benefits for quite some time
to come. Some of them, however, had mental reservations and
were to cause untold misery to the family of the Prophet and

193
his ummah in centuries to come. Yet they were accepted with
open arms by the Islamic community once they declared their
allegiance to the Prophet and accepted Islam.

8. The Mosque of the Prophet, Medina.

194
9. Interior of the Mosque of the Prophet, Medina.

The Kaʿbah was purified of all idols and every vestige of

paganism. The heaviest and largest of the idols, Hubal, was
demolished by ʿAlī. Images inscribed on the walls of the
Kaʿbah were erased, but icons of the Virgin Mary and Jesus

195
were spared. The Prophet put his hands on them to ensure
their protection. Allowance was made for images that were
symbols of spiritual realities and not idols. This act of the
Prophet also emphasized the universal and all-embracing
tolerance of the Islamic perspective toward other religions
based on the nature of things, as found in the Quran and
Sunnah. The easy victory at Mecca was followed by the
arduous victory at Ḥunayn. Taif was unsuccessfully besieged,
but the people of Taif lost no time in embracing Islam when
God changed their hearts soon after.

Contrary to the apprehensions of the Medinese Helpers, the

Prophet did not resettle in Mecca but returned to Medina,
which became the political and religious center of Arabia. In
the year 9 A.H., a difficult and distant march to Tabūk took
place, which was a great success. Local Christian and Jewish
chiefs made their peace with the Prophet. Dissident and
centrifugal forces in Medina were exposed and eventually
suppressed or eliminated. Side by side with northern Arabia,
territories like Yemen, Oman, and Bahrain, all belonging to
the sphere of influence of the Persian Empire, submitted to
the rule of Islam.

These areas produced the first Persian converts to Islam after

the venerable Salmān al-Fārsī, who together with Uways
al-Qaranī of Yemen is among the early saints of Islam.
Uways al-Qaranī never saw the Prophet but bore him the most
intense love. Bilāl, the muezzin, was the first black to
embrace Islam, and Suhayb was of Byzantian origin. These
noble representatives of various ethnic groups were the early
representatives of the universality and global brotherhood that
were to characterize the Islamic ummah throughout its later
history. Piety and not race or ethnicity came to be the

196
criterion of nobility in Islam. The Islamic collectivity was
beginning to live the truth enshrined in the following Quranic
verse: “O mankind, Lo! We have created you male and
female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may
know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of God,
is the most God-fearing one. Lo! God is Knower, Aware”
(XLIX, 13).

Toward the end of the year 10 A.H., the Prophet undertook

the first full-fledged pilgrimage to Mecca in order to teach the
rites to tens of thousands
of his companions in the journey, so that his example could
be followed by coming generations of Muslims. It was
destined to be his last or farewell pilgrimage, and the sermon
that he delivered on the 9th of Dhuʾl-Ḥijjah in the year 10
A.H., toward the end of the ceremonies at ʿArafāt, came to be
known as the Farewell Sermon:

The Farewell Sermon

All praise is for Allah. We praise Him; seek His help and
pardon; and we turn to Him. We take refuge with Allah from
the evils of ourselves and from the evil consequences of our
actions. There is none to lead him astray whom Allah guideth
aright and there is none to guide him aright whom He
misguideth. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah,
alone without any partner, and I bear witness that Muḥammad
is His slave and His Apostle. I admonish you, O slaves of
Allah, to fear Allah and I urge you to be obedient to him and I
open the speech with that which is good.

197
Now to proceed, O people, listen to me; I will deliver a
message to you. For I do not know whether I shall ever have
an opportunity to meet you after this year in this place.

O people, verily your blood (lives), your properties and your

honour are sacred and inviolable to you till you appear before
your Lord, like the sacredness of this day of yours, in this city
of yours. Verily, you will meet your Lord and He will ask you
about your actions. Lo, have I conveyed the message? O
Allah, be witness.

So he who bears with himself any trust, should restore it to

the person who deposited it with him.

Be aware; no one committing a crime is responsible for it but

himself. Neither son is responsible for the crime of his father
nor father is responsible for the crime of his son.

Lo, O people, listen to my words and understand them. You

must know that a Muslim is the brother of a Muslim and the
Muslims are one brotherhood. Nothing belonging to his
brother is lawful for a Muslim except what he himself allows.
So you should not oppress yourselves. O Allah, have I
conveyed the message?

Behold, everything of Ignorance is put down under my two

feet. The blood-revenges of the Age of Ignorance are
remitted. Verily, the first blood-revenge I cancel is the
blood-revenge of Ibn Rabīʿah ibn Ḥārith, who was nursed in
the tribe of Saʿd and whom the Hudhayl killed.

The interest of the Age of Ignorance period is abolished. But

you will receive your capital-stock. Do not oppress and you

198
will not be oppressed. Allah has decreed that there is no
interest. The first interest which I cancel is that of ʿAbbās ibn
al-Muṭṭalib. Verily it is cancelled entirely.

O people, do fear Allah concerning women. You have taken

them with the trust of Allah and you have made their private
parts lawful with the word of Allah.

Verily you have received certain rights over your women and
your women have certain rights over you. Your right over
them is that they should not make anybody, whom you
dislike, trample down your beds, and that they should not
allow anyone whom you dislike (to enter) into your houses. If
they perform such an action, then Allah has permitted you to
harass them, keep them separate in their beds and beat them
but not severely. If they refrain they must have their
sustenance and clothing justly from you.

Behold, receive with kindness the recommendation given

about women. For they are middle-aged women (or helpers)
with you. They do not possess anything for themselves and
you cannot have from them more than that. It they obey you
in this way, then you should not treat them unjustly. Lo, have
I conveyed? O Allah, be witness.

O people, listen and obey though a mangled Abyssinian slave

becomes your ruler who executes the Book of Allah among
you.

O people, verily Allah appropriated to everyone his due. No

will is valid for an inheritor and a will is not lawful for more
than one-third (of the property).

199
The child belongs to the (legal) bed and for the adulterer there
is stoning. He who relates (his genealogy) to other than his
father or claims his clientship to other than his master, the
curse of Allah, the angels and the people—all these—be upon
him. Allah will accept from him neither repentance nor
righteousness.

O people, verily Satan is disappointed from being ever

worshipped in this land of yours. But he is satisfied to be
obeyed in other matters that you think very trifling of your
actions. So be cautious of him in your religion.

Verily, I have left behind among you that which if you catch
hold of you will never be misled later on—a conspicuous
thing, i.e., the Book of Allah and the sunnah of His Apostle.

O people, Gabriel came to me, conveyed salām from my Lord

and said: “Verily Allah, the Mighty and the Great, has
forgiven the people of ʿArafāt and the Sanctuary (to forgo)
their short comings.”

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb stood up and said: “O Apostle of Allah,

is it for us only?” He replied: “It is for you and for those who
are to come after you till the Day of Resurrection.”

And you will be asked about me, then what would you say?
They replied: “We bear witness that you have conveyed the
message. Discharged (your duty) and admonished.”

Then he said, raising his ring-finger towards heaven and

pointing it out towards the people: “O Allah, bear witness: O
Allah, bear witness: O Allah, bear witness.”13

200
Last Days

The Prophet was, to all appearance, in perfect health and

attending to state affairs with diligence. He had received
deputations from practically all parts of Arabia and
particularly from the Banū Tamīm, Banū Saʿd, Banū Bakr,
Ṭayy, Farwā ibn Musayk al-Murādī, Banū Zubaydah, and
Kindah tribes as well as from the kings of Ḥimyar. He kept
sending governors, judges, preachers, peacemakers, and
collectors of zakāt to various regions. He was organizing an
expedition to Syria headed by the young Usāmah ibn Zayd
ibn Ḥārithah, whose appointment was not liked by some
elders among the Muslims. All of a sudden the Prophet fell ill
toward the end of
Ṣafar in the year 11 A.H. He suffered from a headache and
high fever. The illness lasted for seventeen days, which he
spent at ʿĀʾishah’s apartment with the consent of his other
wives. The illness started when he went to the cemetery Baqīʿ
al-Gharqad in the middle of the night and prayed for the dead.
Later on he visited the graves of the martyrs of Uḥud, most
prominent of whom was his uncle Ḥamzah. He prayed for the
martyrs of eight years ago with great intensity, as if he were
taking leave of living beings and journeying with those who
were martyred. During this visit, the Quranic verse uppermost
in his mind, which he recited probably more than once, was
the verse “That is the Last Abode; we appointed it for those
who desire not exorbitance in the earth, nor corruption. The
ultimate issue is to the Godfearing” (XXVIII, 83).

The Prophet had chosen to join the companion on high and

had already turned his back on the world. During this period
he addressed his followers from the pulpit when he prayed for
the broken-heartedness of the Muslims to be removed. He

201
promised to receive them at the Fountain and warned them
that the besetting sin of his ummah would be avarice and that
they must be on their guard against it. He admonished them to
be gracious and forgiving to the early benefactors of Islam,
the Anṣ ārs or the Helpers, whose number was on the
decrease. He asked Abū Bakr to lead the prayers and in fact
made an effort to visit the mosque insofar as it was possible
for him. He would be supported by al-Faḍl ibn al-ʿAbbās, his
cousin, and ʿAlī, his cousin and son-in-law, the husband of
the Prophet’s sole surviving and favorite daughter, Fāṭimah.
Sayyīdah Fāṭimah was the only person in whom the Prophet
confided his approaching death, whereupon she wept. Then
he whispered into her ear that she would be the first of the
family to join him, which made her smile. Among the last
advice given by Mahatma Buddha on his death-bed was the
following: “Work out your own salvation, O monks.”
Likewise, the Prophet admonished his near and dear ones,
especially his well-beloved daughter, Fāṭimah, and his aunt
Ṣafiyyah in these terms: “Work ye that which shall please the
Lord.” Among the prayers he made on his deathbed was the
following: “O Lord, let my grave be not adopted as an idol.
God has cursed the people who have turned the graves of
their prophets into objects of worship.”

On realizing that there were a few gold coins deposited with

his wife ʿĀʾishah, he gave them away in charity, since he did
not want to meet his Lord while there were gold coins present
in his house. From time to time the Prophet sought relief from
the intensity of his fever by having seven skins of water from
different wells in Medina poured over him. He was made to
sit in a tub in the house of his wife Ḥafṣah bint ʿUmar ibn
al-Khaṭṭāb for such a bath. He felt better after taking one of
these baths and went to the mosque and performed the ẓuhr

202
prayers whereafter he took his seat on the pulpit and delivered
a long discourse, which included the following statement:

Verily God the Exalted says: “By the afternoon! Surely Man is in the way of
loss, save those who believe, and do righteous deeds, and counsel each other
unto the truth, and counsel each other to be steadfast.” (CIII)

The Prophet added:

Verily, the affairs take their course according to the Will of God. Do not let
delay in dispensation lead you to despair of demanding Divine Succour. God
Almighty, the Great, is not hurried into anything by anyone of you being in a
hurry. He who contends with God is overpowered by Him. He who plays
false and loose with God is outwitted by Him. If you attain to authority in the
near future do not spread mischief on earth and do not sever blood relations.

He then admonished them at length to be constantly and

selflessly good to the Helpers. He further said:

Beware, he who is anxious to rejoin me at the Fountain must hold his tongue
and restrain his hand.

O People, verily sins deprive people of blessings and bring about changes in
their lot. When people are good their rulers do good to them and when the
people are evildoers their rulers oppress them.

There may be amongst you one whom I owe anything. I am after all a human
being. So if there is any man whose honour I might have injured, here I am to
answer for it. If I have unjustifiably inflicted bodily harm on anyone, I
present myself for retribution. If I owe anything to anyone, here is my
property and he may help himself to it. Know that the most faithful to me of
you is one who having such a claim against me either makes it good or
absolves me of it so that I may meet my Lord after I have been absolved of it.
Nobody should say: “I fear enmity and rancor of the Messenger of God.” I
nurse no grudge towards anyone. These things are repugnant to my nature
and temperament. I abhor them so.

203
The Prophet recalled that some people had criticized the
appointment of Usāmah as commander of the proposed
expedition to Syria. He said:

O men, dispatch Usāmah’s force, for though you criticize his leadership as
you criticized the leadership of his father before him; he is just as worthy of
the command as his father was.14

Usāmah left with his army and went as far as al-Jurf, where
he received word from Umm Ayman, the Prophet’s childhood
nurse, to stay there to see what turn the Prophet’s health took.

10. The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem.

According to the Sunni version, the Prophet praised profusely

Abū Bakr for accepting Islam without the least doubt and also
for his immense generosity for the cause of Islam. He ordered
that all doors opening to the mosque be shut except the one

204
from Abū Bakr’s house, a privilege already conferred on ʿAlī,
according to the Shīʿite version. One morning he is said to
have prayed with Abū Bakr as Imam. Once ʿUmar mistook
orders and led the prayers. This was not approved by the
Prophet, who insisted that Abū Bakr alone should lead the
prayers. The morning the Prophet prayed behind Abū Bakr,
he seemed to have rallied, and the Muslims rejoiced at the
recovery that was, however, more apparent than real. Abū
Bakr sought and secured the Prophet’s permission to visit his
wife at al-Sunh outside Medina. ʿAlī told the worshipers that
the Prophet had recovered and there was no cause for anxiety.
Everybody felt relieved.

After the Prophet returned home, however, the picture

changed. Before exhaustion rendered the Prophet speechless,
his last advice was that the Muslims should be mindful of the
daily prayers and of the welfare of those entrusted to them.
Among his last acts was to use a green twig as a toothbrush,
which ʿĀʾishah softened for him by masticating it. His very
last act was an invocation of blessings upon Usāmah, who
had rushed to the Prophet’s deathbed to pay his final respects.
The Prophet had been in intense pain and constantly sought
Divine Help to ease the agony of death. His last words were
these: “O God, with the supreme communion.”15 He breathed
his last on the 12th of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in the year 11 A.H.
with his head resting in the lap of his favorite and noble wife,
ʿĀʾishah, in whose house he lived and died and was
ultimately buried.

According to the Shīʿite version of the events of the last days

of the Prophet, his sudden and serious illness lasted for three
days only and he died in the hands of ʿAlī as the chief
attendant. He was buried by ʿAlī, Fāṭimah, and other

205
members of his family in the same house where he lived,
while the people of Medina were debating the future of the
Islamic ummah in the adjacent mosque.

The Prophet breathed his last at the age of sixty-three. The

news shook the Muslims. ʿUmar was thrown off balance and
he reiterated that the Prophet had not died. He threatened to
kill anyone holding the opposite view. ʿAlī was so overcome
by grief that he was unable to stand on his legs. ʿUthmān ibn
ʿAffān became utterly speechless. Abū Bakr alone was able to
retain his poise and sobriety. He kissed the Prophet’s forehead
and remarked: “Sweet wert thou in life; sweet art thou in
death.” He then withdrew and addressed the multitude outside
the Prophet’s chamber. ʿUmar would not listen to him, but he
proceeded with his address: “Had not God Almighty revealed
to the Prophet: ‘Verily thou shalt die, and they
shall die’?” (XXX, 30).16 Again: “And Muḥammad is naught
but an Apostle. Apostles have died before him. Can it be that
if he dies or be killed you would turn back on your heels?”
(III, 144). Abū Bakr added, “All praise belongs to Allāh! O
people, whoever worshiped Muḥammad, Muḥammad is dead.
But for him who worships Allāh, Allāh is living and never
dies.” He then recited the verse revealed after the battle of
Uḥud: “And Muḥammad is naught but a messenger;
messengers (the like of whom) have passed away before him.
Will it be that when he dies or is slain, you will turn back on
your heels? Whosoever turns back does no harm to God and
God will reward the grateful” (III, 144). ʿUmar was
dumbfounded on hearing Abū Bakr speak and fell to the
ground on becoming aware of the reality of the Prophet’s
death. Everybody now tried to hear of the loss with fair
patience.

206
The Anṣār assembled in the Hall of Banū Sāʿidah to decide
the succession. The migrants joined them there, and after an
exchange of arguments it was agreed that the Quraysh would
be the administrators and that the Anṣār would be the
ministers or advisors. Abū Bakr proposed the name of ʿUmar
as the first caliph, but ʿUmar firmly took hold of Abū Bakr’s
hand and hastened to take the oath of fealty. The rest followed
him except Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah, a contender from the Helpers,
who was removed from the scene. Abū Bakr was elected to be
the first caliph. He declared that he was not the best among
them and that the weak would be strong while the strong
would remain weak in his eyes until he was able to effect
justice. Meanwhile, ʿAlī, his close relatives, and freedmen of
the Prophet took no part in the electoral process. They were
engaged in making arrangements for washing, shrouding, and
burying the Prophet, who lay in state in ʿĀʾishah’s chamber.
People filed past the bier after saying the funeral prayers
individually and severally. The sacred body was lowered in
the grave by ʿAlī, Usāmah, and al-Faḍl ibn al-ʿAbbās.
Unbaked bricks were used to build a vault over it, and the rest
of the grave was filled with gravel and sand. In this simple
manner, the earthly life of the man praised by God and His
angels came to an end, and the life of the community founded
by him began to flourish on the basis of his example and the
message brought by him to spread beyond the confines of
Arabia to the farthest lands in the east and west.

Notes

1. For the 201 traditional names of the Prophet, see Sheikh

Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti, The Most Beautiful
Names (Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1985) 143ff. To

207
understand fully the meaning of these names, of which the
most famous are perhaps
Muḥammad, Aḥmad, ʿAbd Allāh, and Muṣṭāfa, is to gain a
glimpse of the contour of the spiritual character of the
Prophet.

2. See A. M. Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

3. The best traditional account of the life of the Prophet in

English is M. Lings, Muhammad (London: Allen & Unwin,
1983).

4. The account given here of the life of the Prophet is the

traditional one, which alone is of significance as far as
Islamic spirituality as it has been lived over the centuries is
concerned.

5. Ibn Hishām, Kitāb sīrat rasūl Allāh, ed. F. Wüstenfeld

(Leipzig: Dieterich, 1900) 1:100.

6. Ibid., 101; taken from Lings, Muhammad, 17–18.

7. Lings, Muhammad, 35.

8. Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr (Leiden: Brill,

1904–40) 3:28.

9. Lings, Muhammad, 83.

10. A. Guillaume, trans., The Life of Muhammad: A

Translation of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (London: Oxford
University Press, 1955) 193.

208
11. A. Jeffery, Islam-Muhammad and His Religion
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1958) 42–46. On the miʿrāj, see
also S. H. Nasr, Muhammad, the Man of Allah (London:
Muhammadi Trust, 1982) 14ff.; Schimmel, Muhammad,
chap. 9.

12. See his Tafsīr al-qurʾān (Cairo) 3:225.

13. Maulana M. Ubaidul Akbar, The Orations of Muhammad

(Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1954) 78–79 (with certain
modifications).

14. See A. Guillaume, Life.

15. Lings, Muhammad, 341.

16. L. Azzam and A. Gouverneur, The Life of the Prophet

Muhammad (London: Islamic Text Society, 1985) 121.

209
210
II. Sunnah and Ḥadīth

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

The Significance of the Sunnah and Ḥadīth

THE EMULATION OF THE PROPHET, which lies at the

heart of Islamic spirituality and piety, is based upon his
Sunnah, or traditions and actions. While his inner being or
prophetic Substance is the invisible fountainhead of
spirituality and his life stands as a portrait whose details the
Muslim contemplates throughout his life, the Sunnah provides
concrete examples and access to that Muḥammadan model
which the Quran has commanded the faithful to imitate.
Whereas the inner Sunnah constitutes those virtues and inner
perfections which became echoed during later centuries in
works of Sufi ethics, the body of the Sunnah as a whole has
provided over the ages the guideline for all aspects of the
everyday life of Muslims ranging from eating breakfast to
ruling over the land. The Sunnah is a commentary upon the
Quran and the manner by which the Muslims came to learn
how the truths of the Sacred Text were lived by the most
perfect of God’s creation in a life that was human yet
completely immersed in the sacred. Through the Sunnah
every facet of human life has become sacralized, for the
Divine Law (al-Sharīʿah) itself, which provides the matrix for
Islamic life, is based not only on the Quran but also on the
Ḥadīth and, in a more general sense, the Sunnah, which,
comprising all of the actions and traditions of the Prophet, in
a sense also encompasses the Ḥadīth.

211
There is, however, a difference between the Sunnah and the
Ḥadīth that is often mentioned in traditional Islamic sources.
The Ḥadīth contains the words of the Prophet, whereas the
Sunnah includes both his specific words and actions and
practices of which he approved among earlier Arab traditions
and so allowed to be continued by Muslims. He thereby
Islamicized these practices although they were of pre-Islamic
origin. The Revelation always takes to some extent the color
of the recipient. In the case of the Sunnah, although certain
aspects were directly derived from, were commentaries upon,
and were applications of the teachings of the Quran, other
aspects represent the Islamicization of certain Arabic
traditions that God had allowed to be integrated into the
Islamic universe by permitting the Prophet to accept the
continuation of their practice in the light of the new
Revelation. The unity of the Sunnah as revolving around the
Prophet and
his traditions and actions as well as response to various
situations and circumstances is not, however, in any way
compromised by the acceptance of certain older traditions by
the Prophet. This very acceptance marked also their
integration into the total pattern that he sought to establish as
a model for the Islamic life.

The Sunnah

The Sunnah is central to all aspects of Islamic spirituality, for

it is through the emulation of the Sunnah of the Prophet that
the Muslim is able to gain certain of the virtues which are
possessed in their fullness by the Prophet. The Muslim sees
the Prophet through his Sunnah—how he acted, spoke,
walked, ate, judged, loved, and worshiped. The Sunnah is,
therefore, in a sense the continuation of the life of the Prophet

212
for later generations, complementing the image of his person
reflected also in his names, in the description of his physical
being, and, of course, in the Muḥammadan barakah, which
flows through the ever-present power of his names and his
Sunnah.

The Prophet’s Appearance and Names

The perfection inherent in the Prophet as God’s most noble

and perfect creature could not but manifest itself in his
physical features. He was said to possess an exceptionally
beautiful countenance, which has been extolled over the ages.
His features have been described by several of the
companions, such as ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, his cousin and
son-in-law, with whom he was brought up and who knew him
so intimately. ʿAlī describes the Prophet in these words:

He was neither tall and lanky nor short and stocky, but of medium height. His
hair was neither crispy curled nor straight but moderately wavy. He was not
overweight, and his face was not plump. He had a round face. His
complexion was white tinged with reddishness. He had big black eyes with
long lashes. His bones were heavy and his shoulders broad. He had soft skin,
with fine hair covering the line from midchest to navel. The palms of his
hands and the soles of his feet were firmly padded. He walked with a firm
gait, as if striding downhill. On his back between his shoulders lay the Seal of
Prophethood, for he was the last of the prophets.

He was the most generous of men in feeling, the most truthful in speech, the
gentlest in disposition, and the noblest in lineage. At first encounter people
were awestruck by him, but on closer acquaintance they would come to love
him. One who sought to describe him could only say, “Neither before him
nor after him did I ever see the like of him.”1

The physical beauty of the Prophet, which has been so

exquisitely described in Arabic, Persian, and vernacular
poetry of the Islamic peoples, possesses a direct spiritual

213
significance. The beauty of his face has been compared to the
full moon and his stature to the cypress tree; it has been said
that no beauty in the world could ever match the beauty of his
countenance. In the Muslim eye, this appreciation of the
beauty of the Prophet is directly related to the love for him
and constitutes a basic aspect of Islamic spirituality
complementing the fear, love, and knowledge of God, the
One who is at once transcendent and immanent.

In the same way that Muḥammadun rasūl Allāh (“Muḥammad

is the Messenger of God) follows Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh, the
names of the Prophet flow from those of God and are a ladder
that leads to Him. The Prophet has been even honored by God
by having some of the Divine Names such as Ṭa Ha and Nūr
also bestowed upon him. The chanting of the litanies of the
names of the Prophet is an important practice in Sufism and
on a more external level in the everyday activity of many
pious Muslims. The Turkish Sufi poet Yunis Emre sang seven
centuries ago:

Please pray for us on Doomsday—

Thy name is beautiful, thou thyself art beautiful, Muḥammad!

Thy words are accepted near God, the Lord—

Thy name is beautiful, thou thyself art beautiful.2

Not only is the Prophet called Muḥammad, the most praised

one, but he is also Aḥmad, the most praiseworthy of those
who praise God. He is Waḥīd, the unique one; Māḥī, the
annihilator of darkness and ignorance; and ʿĀqib, the last of
the prophets. He is Ṭāhir, the pure and clean one; Ṭayyib, he
who possesses beauty and fragrance; and Sayyid, prince and

214
master of the universe. He is, of course, Rasūl, messenger, but
also Rasūl al-Raḥmah, the messenger of mercy; and Khātim
al-rusul, the seal of prophets. He is ʿAbd Allāh, the perfect
servant of God, but also Ḥabīb Allāh, the beloved of God; and
Ṣafī Allāh, the one chosen by God. He is both Nāṣir, the
victorious helper of men, and Manṣūr, the one who is made
triumphant in this world.

The Prophet is Muḥyī, the vivifier of the dead hearts of men,

and Munjī, he who delivers man from sin. He is Nūr, light, as
well as Sirāj, the torch that illuminates the path in man’s life;
Miṣbāḥ, the lamp that contains the light of faith, and Hudā,
the guide to God and paradise. He is Dhū quwwah, the
possessor of strength; Dhū ḥurmah, possessor of sacred
reverence; and Dhū makānah, the possessor of integrity. He is
both Amīn, trustworthy, and Sadīq, truthful. He is the Miftāḥ,
or key to paradise, and Miftāḥ al-rahmah, the key to God’s
Mercy. The love of the Prophet is in fact both a sign of
the love of God and the gate to that Mercy from which the
very substance of the universe was created.

In reciting the names of the Prophet, the Muslim draws closer

to the Prophet and participates in some degree in those
qualities and virtues which the names reflect. The names of
the Prophet are the colors with which the spiritual portrait of
the Prophet is engraved in the hearts and souls of the
members of his community, facilitating the emulation of his
Sunnah and providing the channel for that barakah which is
experienced concretely when his Sunnah is lived and
emulated in life. In a sense in fact, both the names of the
Prophet and the appreciation of his beauty constitute an
element of his Sunnah, an element that is central to the
spiritual life of Islam.

215
Aspects of the Sunnah

The Sunnah comprises the strands of which the fiber of

Islamic life is woven. Although not all Muslims live always
according to the Sunnah—human nature being what it is—the
practice of the Sunnah has remained always an ideal to be
achieved. Moreover, it is an ideal that has been realized to a
remarkable degree over the ages and has, in any case, always
been of central concern for those who have sought to live a
spiritual life according to the “Muḥammadan model.”

As already stated, the Sunnah itself covers all aspects of

human life from praying to dealing with one’s family, friends,
and the community, carrying out economic transactions,
being kind to animals, or running a state. When a Muslim
greets another by saying as-salāmu ʿalayka (“Peace be upon
you”), he is following the prophetic Sunnah. When a person
tries to treat an orphan with kindness or be respectful of his or
her parents and elders or be charitable to the poor, he is
following the Sunnah Moreover, when he seeks to be
trustworthy and truthful or kind and generous, he is following
the Sunnah—but this time the inner Sunnah, which is central
to the spiritual life.

Even minute details of life such as the manner of eating at the

table or sitting or entering a house are based on the Sunnah,
and the pious among Muslims are aware of the barakah that
emanates from such everyday acts when they are consciously
based on the prophetic model. On the higher levels of
spiritual realization, the Muḥammadan barakah in a sense
flows from the being of the person who has lived the inner
Sunnah, in whose heart lies the constant remembrance of
God. That is why in popular parlance it is often said that one

216
can see the reflection of the Light of Muḥammad (al-nūr
al-muḥammadī) in the countenance of this or that saintly
person and to feel the Muḥammadan barakah in his presence,
movements, and comportment.

From the point of view of spirituality, what is central is the

essential or inner Sunnah, which is indispensable, whereas the
outer Sunnah acts as a formal support for it.3 The essential
Sunnah concerns most of all the inner virtues of the Prophet
and the spiritual perfections that flow from the prophetic
Substance discussed earlier in this work. All the external
Sunnah is a way of leading to those virtues and of enabling
the soul to become embellished by them. Although as the
final prophet, the Prophet of Islam synthesized the prophetic
function and returned man to his state of primordial
perfection (al-fiṭrah), there are certain central virtues that
characterize the inner nature of the Prophet: humility, charity,
or nobility, and truthfulness or sincerity. The Sunnah reflects
on various levels these virtues, and through its emulation the
soul of the Muslim becomes gradually imbued with them. In a
sense, the practical aspect of Islamic spirituality may be said
to consist of the gradual embellishment of the soul with the
Muḥammadan virtues. In fact, people of spiritual character in
the Islamic world are often said to possess the “Muḥammadan
character” (khū-yi muḥammadī in Persian), because through
the practice of his Sunnah they have come to attain some of
the virtues possessed in their fullness and perfection by God’s
Last Prophet.

Sunnah and Adab

A key concept in Islamic culture and thought whose

understanding is necessary for the comprehension of the

217
various dimensions of Islamic spirituality is adab, a word that
probably entered Arabic from Pahlavi but is nevertheless a
basic Islamic concept. Adab means at once courtesy, manners,
correct comportment and upbringing, culture and literature.
To possess adab is to be truly cultured in a manner that
embraces not only the mind but also the body and soul. Adab
means being polite before elders; recognizing the innate
hierarchy in human values; knowing when to speak and when
to remain silent, how to sit or stand politely, how to eat
properly, and how to act correctly in all situations. Although
some aspects of adab, such as the manner whereby one must
be hospitable to guests, are determined by local cultural
conditions, there is a deeper aspect of adab that concerns the
training of the soul and of the body in relation to the soul.
This aspect of adab is of great importance in the spiritual life,
and a certain amount of adab is a prerequisite for embarking
upon the spiritual path.

Much of Sufism concerns itself with this spiritual aspect of

adab, and usually each Sufi center possesses elaborate rules
for the adepts in their
dealing with the master, other disciples, and the world
outside. The aim of these rules is to train the soul and bestow
upon it the habits necessary for progress upon the spiritual
path.4 Adab is especially effective in curbing the passions and
bridling the aggressive tendencies of the lower soul and the
excesses of its appetites.

Not all the forms and aspects of adab are drawn from or
based directly upon the Sunnah, but much that is basic to
adab does derive from the Sunnah. In a sense, the basic
attitudes which the practice of adab inculcates in the soul of
the Muslim are derived from the Sunnah, and in certain areas

218
adab and the Sunnah coincide. In any case, the adab, so
visible in traditional Islamic society, is inextricably tied to the
Sunnah and reflects the prophetic practices and traditions on a
particular level that is of great importance both socially and
spiritually.

The Sunnah of the Prophet is the enactment in human terms

of the teachings of Islam as revealed in the Quran, the
enactment having been first carried out by the most perfect of
God’s creatures and the man most able to understand God’s
commands and to put them into action in concrete situations.
To emulate the Sunnah is to live Islamically and according to
God’s will. Moreover, it is to imitate the beloved of God and
consequently to be loved by God as the very result of this
emulation. The Sunnah embraces all domains of human life,
but at its heart lies that inner Sunnah which is none other than
the traces of the spiritual Substance of the Prophet. To live
according to this Sunnah means to live in constant
remembrance of God, to be severe with oneself and generous
with those about us, to understand our nothingness before that
awesome Majesty that is God and to live in truth and certainty
of the saving power of the One who is both Absolute and
Infinite. There is no Islamic spirituality possible without the
Sunnah, for the gate to the higher worlds was opened for the
Islamic sector of humanity by the Prophet alone during his
nocturnal journey. It is he alone who holds the key to those
gates and who alone can guide the Muslim on the path of
spiritual realization.5

Ḥadīth

The Ḥadīth constitutes a part of the Sunnah, for it consists of

those traditions of the Prophet which are in the form of

219
sayings rather than actions. The word ḥadīth itself means
“saying,” but it is also rendered as “tradition”; the plural is
aḥadīth. The corpus of the sayings of the Prophet are referred
to as Ḥadīth, since it constitutes a distinct body of words
assembled by later scholars in canonical collections that are
of prime importance in all aspects of Islamic thought. Only
the Quran is of greater significance and authority.
The Ḥadīth is, in fact, the first and most important
commentary on the Quran. At the same time, it completes the
Sacred Text and amplifies and makes explicit many of its
verses. The Ḥadīth is like the expansion in human language,
that of the Prophet, of the Divine Word which is the Quran.

220
11. “The Prophet praying before the Divine Throne and
Receiving from God instructions concerning the daily
prayers,” Supplement Turc 190, Folio 34v.

221
The first two centuries of Islam saw the transmission,
application, and first moves toward the codification of the
Ḥadīth. As the Islamic community spread and the ummah
became ever more distanced from the lifetime of the Prophet
and his immediate companions, the need for compiling,
authenticating, and sifting the body of Ḥadīth grew, and an
ever greater number of religious scholars began to apply
themselves to this task. Several sciences were developed in
the field of Ḥadīth studies, such as al-dirāyah, which
examines the authenticity of the chain of transmission (isnād).
This examination includes the ethical character, quality of
piety, standing in the community, and trustworthiness of those
men and women who were accepted as transmitters of the
ḥadīths which came to be accepted by the community. In this
process, in which pious women played a major role along
with men, both those who transmitted a ḥadīth and those who
collected and codified the prophetic sayings were God-fearing
people. In contrast to many modern Western critics of Ḥadīth,
for them the fire of hell was a reality, and fabrication of
sayings attributed to the Prophet was a grievous sin
punishable after death with infernal suffering. The scholars of
Ḥadīth, or muḥaddithūn, were in fact always a small group of
religious scholars who were expected to possess great virtue
and piety as well as knowledge.

These scholars sifted the vast body of sayings attributed to the

Prophet and classified them according to those that were
certain, doubtful, and spurious. Gradually this process
produced the six major canonical collections which came to
be accepted by the Sunni community. These works, usually
called Ṣaḥīḥ (pl. Ṣiḥāḥ), consist of Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ of Abū
ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Bukhārī, the Ṣaḥīḥ of
Abūʾl-Ḥusayn ʿAsākir al-Dīn Muslim, the Sunan of Abū

222
Dāʾūd al-Sijistānī, the Jāmiʿ of Abū ʿĪsa Muḥammad
al-Tirmidhī, the Sunan of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, and
the Sunan of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mājah. There
are also other works such as the Sunan of al-Dārimī and the
al-Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas that have also always been
highly respected by Sunni Muslims, but none can match the
significance of the six works which are usually referred to
collectively as al-Ṣiḥāḥ al-sittah or the six Ṣaḥīḥs. These
works, all compiled in the third/ninth century, received the
seal of approval of the ʿulamāʾ and the community in the
form of ijmāʿ, or consensus. They came to form an
indispensable source upon which Sunni Islam has relied for
over a millennium
for its knowledge of Ḥadīth, which along with the Quran
constitutes the pillar of the whole religion6. There are of
course certain ḥadīths, especially of an esoteric nature, which
continued to be transmitted orally and do not appear in
writing until centuries later and then in works of such Sufi
masters as al-Ghazzālī and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. But the vast
majority of ḥadīths upon which the Islamic community has
based itself over the centuries in the development of its
various sciences ranging from jurisprudence (fiqh) to
theology (kalām) are to be found in these canonical
collections.

In Twelve-Imam Shīʿism the collection of Ḥadīth includes

not only the sayings of the Prophet but also those of the
Imams, who bear within themselves the Prophetic Light and
represent the prolongation of the function of the Prophet in its
nonlegislative aspects. The Shīʿites distinguish between a
prophetic saying (al-ḥadīth al-nabawī) and the saying of an
Imam (al-ḥadīth al-walawī). Both these types of Ḥadīth were
collected and codified by Shīʿite scholars a century after the

223
Sunni canonical collections saw the light of day. The basic
Shīʿite works on Ḥadīth, which are often referred to as “The
Four Books” (al-kutub al-arbaʿah), are al-Kāfī by
Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, Man lā
u
yaḥḍuruh ʾl-faqīh of Muḥammad ibn Bābūyah al-Qummī,
and two works of Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-tahdhīb and
Kitāb al-istibṣār. These four works were all compiled in the
fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries and are as essential to
all aspects of Shīʿite Islam as the Ṣiḥāḥ are to Sunni Islam.
The Shīʿite collections played perhaps an even greater role in
the development of later Islamic philosophy, when a number
of them became the subject of commentaries by some of the
outstanding Islamic metaphysicians and philosophers.7

Since Islamic studies became a distinct discipline in the West

at the beginning of this century, a number of Western
scholars—foremost among them I. Goldziher followed by A.
J. Wensinck, A. Guillaume, J. Schacht, and others—have
tried to apply the critical historical methods developed in the
nineteenth century to the collections of Ḥadīth. Their work
was based on the usually unstated premises that what is not
found in written record is a later addition or fabrication, that
Islam, being a so-called simple religion of the desert, could
not possibly have metaphysical and esoteric doctrines
contained in the sayings of its Prophet, and that oral
transmission and the whole idea of traditional orthodoxy and
its historical continuity are invalid. These Western scholars of
Islam came to consider most of the canonically accepted
ḥadīths to be third/ninth century reflections of the Islamic
community upon its religious heritage and therefore not
authentic sayings of the Prophet. Later research by scholars
such as N. Abbot has modified this criticism by unveiling
much earlier documents containing many well-known

224
ḥadīths. However, much of Western scholarship still casts a
doubtful eye upon the authenticity of Ḥadīth in the sense that
it has always been understood by traditional Muslims.8
Muslim scholars have for their part provided answers to
orientalists’ charges, aware that the authors of the Ṣiḥāḥ chose
some six thousand ḥadīths from among nearly three hundred
thousand and declared their authenticity after the most
vigorous scholarly examination combined with piety and the
protection of tradition, with all that it implies.9

This work on Islamic spirituality is not the place to delve into

the attacks and responses concerning the Ḥadīth. Although
there are a number of small Muslim groups in the
Indo-Pakistani subcontinent and in the Arab world who want
to reinterpret Islam on the basis of the Quran alone, they
constitute a marginal phenomenon. They might be taken into
consideration in a general study on contemporary Islam, but
such movements, as well as Western criticisms of Ḥadīth, are
not relevant to an understanding of Islamic spirituality. For
throughout Islamic history, those who have sought to tread
upon the spiritual path have been “nourished” by the Ḥadīth
and guided by the barakah of the Prophet in such a way that
they have possessed “an existential” guarantee of the
authenticity of the sayings that have guided their lives, the
guarantee issuing inwardly from the being who is at the origin
of the Ḥadīth.

The Scope of Ḥadīth

The Ḥadīth literature is a veritable compendium of wisdom

and guidance covering every facet of human thought and life.
Like the Sunnah, it concerns everyday aspects of life such as
eating, sleeping, treating one’s neighbors, and providing

225
livelihood for oneself and one’s family, as well as social,
economic, and political affairs concerning society as a whole.
It also deals extensively with the rites and ritual aspects of
Islamic life as well as the inner life itself. Moreover, being
constituted of words rather than actions, as is the case of the
Sunnah, the Ḥadīth also deals extensively with metaphysics,
cosmology, cosmogony, the science of the origin and nature
of man, and eschatology. It deals also with specifically
theological questions such as free will and determinism as
well as detailed juridical discussions without which the
Divine Law could not have become codified by the great
doctors of Law who founded the four Sunni schools of Law
(madhāhib). The same truth holds true for Shīʿism, where,
despite the ever-present authority of the Imam, the Quran and
Ḥadīth remain the fundamental sources of the Divine Law.

The Ṣaḥīḥ of Bukhārī, the most famous of the six Sunni

canonical collections, reflects in the titles of its books and
sections the scope of the ḥadīths that it includes. The work of
Bukhārī includes sections devoted to the nature of God and
prophecy, creation, ethical questions, rites, acquiring of
knowledge, and eschatology. There is hardly an aspect of
man’s life that is not touched by the light of a ḥadīth, and
such metaphysical and cosmological questions as the origin of
the world, the primacy of the intellect, and man’s final end
are also included in ḥadīths which have served as the source
of metaphysical speculation and contemplation over the
centuries.

The Shīʿite collections are likewise divided into sections that

reflect the wide spectrum of subjects with which the ḥadīths
deal. There are, however, some differences, although most of
the sayings of the Prophet mentioned by the sources

226
traditionally accepted by the Sunnis and Shīʿites are the same.
One of the notable differences that has played an important
role in the development of Islamic theology and philosophy
during later centuries is the emphasis upon the intellect
(al-ʿaql) in the Shīʿite sources, to such an extent that the Uṣul
al-kāfī of Kulaynī, perhaps the most important of the “Four
Books” of Shīʿism, devotes a special book to sayings
concerned with al-ʿaql. There are, of course, also many
ḥadīths about the virtue and nobility of al-ʿaql in Sunni
sources, but there is somewhat more emphasis upon this
subject in the Shīʿite collections of Ḥadīth. Both Sunni and
Shīʿite sources, however, deal extensively with questions
related directly to knowledge and the spiritual life. There is,
in fact, no possibility of understanding Islamic spirituality
without comprehending the significance of Ḥadīth in all
dimensions of the life of Islam, from the most outward to the
most central and inward.

Divine Sayings (al-aḥādīth al-qudsiyyah)

There are numerous ḥadīths that concern the spiritual life.

Within the corpus of Ḥadīth there are some in which God
speaks in the first person through the mouth of the Prophet,
although these sayings are not a part of the Quran. They deal
in an especially direct manner with the inner life. These
traditions, which are called Divine Sayings (aḥādīth
qudsiyyah), form, along with certain verses of the Quran, the
revealed and prophetic basis of Sufism and are repeated over
the ages in numerous works of Sufis.10 These sayings deal
with the inner life, with methods of spiritual practice, with the
Mercy of God, and with other themes central to the spiritual
life.

227
In one of these ḥadīths God speaks through the mouth of the
Prophet:

I fulfill My servant’s expectation of Me, and I am with him when he

remembers [or invokes] Me. If he remembers Me in his heart, I remember
him in
My heart; and if he remembers Me in public, I remember him before a public
[far] better than that. And if he draws nearer to Me by a handsbreadth, I draw
nearer to him by an armslength; and if he draws nearer to Me by an
armslength, I draw nearer to him by a fathom; and if he comes to Me
walking, I come to him running.11

In this ḥadīth not only is the central practice of Sufism, the

dhikr—which is at once remembrance, invocation, and
mention of God’s Name—emphasized, but also it is pointed
out that there is no quantitative reciprocity between man’s
efforts on the spiritual path and the Divine Response.
Whatever steps man takes toward God in complete faith and
with all his heart and soul are recompensed in an
immeasurable manner far beyond what the acts themselves
might warrant if viewed only outwardly.

Yet there is also a reciprocity between man and the Divine

Order in the sense that man cannot love God and turn to Him
unless God first loves man and turns “His Face” toward him.
Man cannot turn toward God unless God also turns toward
him. This basic truth is asserted in another famous ḥadīth
qudsī, “If My servant longs to meet Me, I long to meet him.
And if he abhors meeting Me, I abhor meeting him.”12 Also,
“My love belongs by right to those who love one another in
Me, to those who sit together (in fellowship) in Me, to those
who visit one another in Me, and to those who give
generously to one another in Me.”13 This saying is also the

228
basis for the Sufi gathering (majlis) where men and women sit
together to remember and invoke God.

The immeasurable Divine Response issuing from His Mercy

to the spiritual efforts of man is emphasized in another ḥadīth
qudsī, which is perhaps the most famous and often quoted of
these sayings in later Islamic sources, especially works of
Sufism. This saying, usually called the ḥadīth of nawāfil
(supererogatory works), has several versions, the heart of
which is as follows:

My servant draws near to Me by means of nothing dearer to Me than that

which I have established as a duty for him. And my servant continues
drawing nearer to Me through supererogatory acts until I love him; and when
I love him, I become his ear with which he hears, his eye with which he sees,
his hand with which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks. And if he
asks Me [for something], I give it to him. If indeed he seeks My help, I help
him.14

This celebrated ḥadīth not only outlines the stages of

approaching God but also alludes to the mystery of
sanctification and union, for surely he who sees with the eye
of God sees God everywhere and he who hears with the ear of
God hears the echo of His Name wherever he turns and in
whatever sound he experiences.

These sayings always emphasize the lack of equality between

God’s Mercy and His Justice, according to the verse written
on the Throne of God, “Verily My Mercy overcometh My
Wrath.”15 In one of these ḥadīths, God says, “Whoever does a
good deed, to him belong ten like it, and I increase [even
this].”16 Some of these ḥadīths also reveal God’s desire for
man to turn to Him, for God says, “Who entreats Me, that I
may answer him? Who asks [something] of Me, that I may

229
give to him? Who asks My forgiveness, that I may
forgive?”17 Only the person of spiritual disposition realizes
that the very act of asking God’s forgiveness draws the
Divine Mercy toward that person and that, as long as man is
man, the gate toward the Divine Presence is open and man
can draw nigh toward God by asking God’s forgiveness. Even
the Prophet of God used to invoke astaghfir Allāh (I ask
forgiveness of God) every day.

The body of Divine Sayings constitutes one of the most

sublime works pertaining to the spiritual life. They distill and
synthesize the spiritual message of the Ḥadīth. Concerned
with the whole of life, the Ḥadīth also concerns matters that
appear to be of a mundane character in the sense of belonging
to the domain of everyday life. But even these matters were
sanctified by being lived and experienced by the Prophet in
accordance with the vocation of Islam to assert, on the one
hand, the Unity of God and to integrate, on the other, the
whole of life into a sacred mold, leaving nothing outside the
domain of the sacred and the religious.

As the Quran asserts, “God and His angels shower blessings

upon the Prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him
and salute him with a worthy salutation” (XXXIII, 56). By
emulating the Sunnah of the Prophet and studying and
meditating upon his Ḥadīth, man is carried with his help and
the attraction of heaven to the Divine Realm and participates
in a certain sense in his Nocturnal Ascent (al-miʿrāj). God
loves the person who loves His Prophet, who is also His
beloved. That is why Muslims love the Prophet; and his life,
traditions, and sayings provide for the Muslim a lamp which
illuminates the path of human existence toward its entelechy,

230
which is God, a path whose ultimate guide is none other than
the Prophet himself.

Between Aḥmad and Aḥad (the One) there stands but the letter (m).

The Universe is immersed in this single letter.

Maḥmūd Shabistarī

Notes

1. Quoted in Sheikh Tosun Bayrak, al-Jerrahi al-Halveti, The

Most Beautiful Names (Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1985)
141.

2. Trans. by A. M. Schimmel in her And Muhammad is His

Messenger (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1985) 105 (modified). See chapter 6 of this volume for the
spiritual significance of the names of the Prophet.

3. See F. Schuon, “The Sunnah,” in his Islam and the

Perennial Philosophy, trans. J. P. Hobson (London: World of
Islam, 1971) 111–2.

4. There is a whole category of Sufi writings, called adab

al-murīdīn or adab-i khānaqāh, that is concerned with this
very subject in which the training of the soul is related to the
inculcation of adab in the disciples. One of the most famous
works of this genre is the Adab al-murīdīn of Abū Najīb
Suhrawardī.

5. It must be remembered that all Sufi masters derive their

right to guide initiatically from the Prophet and represent him
within the spiritual community that they guide.

231
6. On Ḥadīth literature see Muḥammad Zubayr Ṣiddiqī,
Ḥadīth Literature (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1961).

7. The most important of these commentaries is the Sharḥ

uṣul al-kāfī of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrazī. See S. H. Nasr, Ṣadr
al-Dīn Shīrāzī and His Transcendent Theosophy (Tehran:
Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978) 47; and H.
Corbin, En Islam iranien (4 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1971–72)
4:63ff. One of Ṣadr al-Dīn’s students, Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ
Kāshānī, was an outstanding scholar of Ḥadīth besides being
a metaphysician and philosopher.

8. One of the scholarly works that reflects the debate of

Muslims concerning Western scholarship in the domain of
Ḥadīth is G. H. A. Juynboll, The Authenticity of Tradition
Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt (Leiden: Brill,
1969).

9. See, e.g., S. M. Yusuf, An Essay on the Sunnah (Karachi:

Institute of Islamic Culture, 1966); and S. H. Nasr, Ideals and
Realities of Islam (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) 79ff.

10. On these ḥadīths, see W. Graham, Divine Word and

Prophetic Word in Early Islam (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).

11. Ibid., 127.

12. Ibid., 153.

13. Ibid., 142.

14. Ibid., 173.

232
15. Ibid., 184.

16. Ibid., 175.

17. Ibid., 177.

233
234
 6

The Inner Meaning of the Islamic Rites: Prayer,

Pilgrimage, Fasting, Jihād

SYED ALI ASHRAF

Purification (ṭahārah)

AS ALLĀH IS BOTH al-Ẓāhir (the Outward, the Manifest)

and al-Bāṭin (the Inward, the Hidden), He has sanctioned for
mankind some formal rites to be performed in order for them
to draw nearer to Him. This nearness is achieved when the
performer tries to realize the inner significance of these rites
while maintaining their external form. In order to perform
these rites properly, the first necessary element for Muslims is
purification (ṭahārah), which also has an outward form and an
inner meaning. Outwardly, one has to wash one’s hands up to
the wrist three times, rinse one’s mouth with water thrown
into it with the right hand, sniff water into the nostrils and
throw it out thrice, wash the face thrice, wash first the right
and then the left arm up to the elbow thrice, wipe the head
with the inner surface of the fingers of both hands, put two
forefingers in the two eardrums and wipe the backs of the ears
with the thumbs; with the back of the fingers of both the
hands jointly one has to wipe the back of the neck, and then
wash the right and then the left foot up to the ankles thrice.1

This outward form of ablution (wuḍūʾ) turns into a form of

prayer of forgiveness and mercy when the person performing

235
the ablution starts praying to God. He prays to God to cleanse
him of the sins he has committed with his two hands
knowingly or unknowingly, to cleanse him also of the sins
committed by his mouth, to fill his nostrils with the sweet
scent of paradise, to remove the darkness that has stained his
face and to illuminate
it with the light of His Wisdom. He entreats God to place the
record book of his action in the right hand as it would be done
with the righteous people and not in the left hand as it would
be done with the sinners. While washing his right foot, he
prays to be led upon the straight path, and while washing the
left he entreats to be protected from the promptings of the
forces of evil, which try to lead man upon the corrupt path,
the path of the destruction of all virtues.

Thus, the purification of the outer limbs is accompanied by an

inner purification and an intensive prayer for forgiveness,
mercy, and guidance. Those who seek the nearness of God
always try to remain pure both outwardly and inwardly. The
outer form of purification becomes necessary when man
serves nature’s call or vomits or when he bleeds. The whole
body needs purification after the ejaculation of semen or
sexual intercourse. As internal purification accompanies this
outer ablution, the prophet Muḥammad has said, “He who
makes ablution afresh revives and refreshes his faith.” He has
also said, “Ablution upon ablution is illumination upon
illumination.” When a person therefore performs ablution,
thinking of all the sins committed by him through his
different organs, and goes on praying to God as a penitent
asking for His forgiveness and mercy, his sins are forgiven
and hands and face are illumined. As repentance precedes
illumination, ablution precedes formal prayer. Those who
want to draw nearer to God always try to regain outward

236
purity as soon as that purity has been broken. They also
observe all inner impurities within themselves so as to
remove them and become spiritually strengthened. This inner
significance gives true meaning to the ritual of outward
purification.

Prayer (al-ṣalāt)

God says in the Quran, “Preserve prayer and especially the

middle prayer” (II, 238). The first prayer refers to regular
fixed prayers at fixed times having a fixed form.
Commentators of the Quran explain the middle prayer as the
afternoon prayer, but Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī (Gīlānī), as
well as many other Sufis, asserts that this other prayer is the
prayer of the qalb (heart), which is a spiritual and not a
physical organ. It is located, like the physical heart, in the
middle of the chest somewhat to the left. The Prophet has said
about it, “Verily the qalb (heart) of the sons of Adam is
between the two fingers of Allāh. He changes it as He
wishes.” The two fingers signify, according to Shaykh ʿAbd
al-Qādir Jīlānī, the two attributes of God signifying His
powers of destruction and bounty. Preservation or
maintenance of the power of the heart is necessary in order to
gain that bounty and save oneself from the wrath of the
Almighty.

237
12. General view of Mecca.

238
13. Cylindrical Minaret of the Mosque of Moulay Idris,
decorated with kufic calligraphy.

239
14. Jāmi’ Mosque, Kuala Lampur.

That this prayer of the heart is the most real prayer and that if
a man neglects it his regular formal prayer becomes only an
external show are indicated by another statement of the
Prophet: “Prayer without the Presence of the Lord in the heart
is not prayer at all.” Regular formal prayer should be an
external manifestation of this internal prayer. Regular prayers
are prescribed five times a day: morning (fajr), midday
(ẓuhr), afternoon (ʿaṣr), evening (maghrib), and night
(ʿishāʾ). The timings are as follows: morning prayer is said
between dawn and sunrise; midday prayer is between midday
and the midpoint between midday and sunset; afternoon
prayer is between that midpoint and sunset; evening prayer is
between sunset and the time when the darkness of the night
covers the twilight; night prayer is between the end of twilight
and dawn or, according to some schools, midnight. Internal

240
prayer, or the prayer of the heart, however, has no fixed time.
It should, in fact, be continuous and constant. This internal
prayer purifies the heart. The Prophet referred to this
purification when he said, “There is a piece of flesh inside
man’s body. When it is purified, the whole body gets purified;
when it is impure, the whole body remains impure. That piece
is the heart (qalb).” The body suffers from impurity when the
qalb is impure, because then evil thoughts and desires start
controlling the mind and guiding the senses. Thus envy,
greed, backbiting, love of worldly power, sensual desires, and
such other evils try to become the ruling forces dominating
the soul. The mind, as a result, begins to indulge in all kinds
of unnecessary thoughts at the time of formal prayer;
therefore, true prayer is neglected and destroyed. The formal
external prayer becomes nothing more than ostentation.

In order that the formal prayer may become what the Prophet
meant when he said “Prayer is mirʿāj (ascent) for the muʾmin
(faithful),” perfect concentration and constant remembrance
of God are necessary. There is no fixed time and place for
such a prayer. The whole life of man must become a form of
worship. Man must be able to realize the truth of the
statement that God has asked each believer to utter in this
verse: ‘’Say: O my Lord, my prayers, my sacrifice, my life
and my death are for God, the Lord of the worlds who hath no
peer” (VI, 162–63). Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī called this
internal prayer the prayer of the path (ṣalāt al-ṭarīqah) and
described it in the following way: “Its mosque is the qalb. Its
congregation is the conglomeration of all internal forces in
man. It recites with spiritual tongue the Names of God’s
Unity (tawḥīd). Its imām is a deep spiritual urge in the heart
(al-shawq fiʾl-fuʾād). Its qiblah (direction of prayer) is the
Unity of Godhead (aḥadiyyah). The qalb (heart) and rūḥ

241
(spirit) are constantly engaged in this prayer. They neither
sleep, nor do they die.”2 When the qalb
and the rūḥ are thus engaged in constant prayer and
supplication (munājāt), the formal prescribed prayer becomes
a true manifestation of internal realization, a contemplation
and a secret call exchanged between God and His servant.
That is what is meant by God’s utterance in the following
ḥadīth qudsī: “I have divided prayer between Me and My
servant into two halves, one being due to Me and the other to
My servant; and My servant will receive that for which he
asks.”3

When an individual, therefore, stands before the Lord with

bent head and crossed arms, he is a complete slave, helpless
and alone. That is why in other rituals it is possible to talk or
move, but in prayer one is compelled to annihilate oneself in
the presence of the Almighty. He sees the Lord in front of
him because the Lord resides in his qalb. But if his power of
vision is not still so clear, he should pray “as if He sees him.”
This is what the Prophet meant in his definition of iḥsān
(spiritual virtue), which is “to adore God as if thou dost see
Him, and if thou dost not see Him, He nevertheless sees
thee.” He therefore should imagine God in front of him
because, though he may not see Him or become conscious of
His Presence, “He is,” as the Prophet has said, “in truth
present in the qiblah of every one of you.” Each individual’s
consciousness depends on his capability and cultivation. That
is why God says, “We will impose on each soul only the
obligation of which it is capable” (II, 286; VI, 153; VII, 40).

As the person stands before God, he should “lend his hearing”

to what God says in reply to his prayer. In a ḥadīth qudsī, the
Prophet has narrated what God says when a person recites the

242
Ṣūrat al-fāṭihah (the opening chapter of the Quran, which
constitutes the principal text of every canonical prayer). The
servant says, “In the Name of God the Most Merciful
(al-Raḥmān), the Most Compassionate (al-Raḥīm),” and God
says “My servant mentions Me.” The servant then says,
“Praise be to God, the Master of the Universe,” and God says
in his turn, “My servant lends Me grace.” The servant then
says, “The Compassionate, the Merciful,” and God replies,
“My servant praises Me.” The servant says, “The King of the
Day of Judgment,” and God says, “My servant glorifies Me
and submits himself to Me.” This first half of this chapter so
far cited relates exclusively to God and the servant’s
invocation of His Attributes. In the next half of the chapter,
the servant prays with a complete sense of humility. The
servant says, “It is Thee whom we adore, and it is of Thee
that we beg for help,” and God says, “This is shared between
Me and My servant, and My servant will receive that which
he asks.” When the servant says, “Lead us upon the right
path, the path of those to whom Thou hast been most
gracious, not of those on whom Thy Wrath has descended,
nor of those who have gone astray,” God says, “All that
comes back to My servant, and My servant will receive that
for which he asks.” Thus, the second half of this chapter is
related exclusively to man. It is because of this mutual
participation between God and man in this chapter, which is
considered to be the heart of the Quran, that the canonical
prayer is regarded as not having been performed if this
chapter is not recited.

The form and the substance of what the praying individual

utters thereby draw the individual closer to God. The servant
bows down (rukūʿ) and glorifies the greatness of God. When
he straightens up from bowing, he says “God hears those who

243
laud Him.” This recitation is a form of announcement to
himself and all those who pray behind him, including the
angels and jinns, and they reply “Our Lord, praise to Thee.”
The former statement is, in reality, enunciated by God
through the mouth of His adorer. Thus, the intimate God–man
relationship is deepened.

When the adorer then prostates himself and says, “Glory be to

my Lord, the Greatest of the Great,” he is in a state of final
annihilation. As imām of himself when he prays alone, he
leads all the forces in his own being to the stage of complete
annihilation (fanāʾ). As imām of the rest of the congregation,
he draws the whole congregation toward the same end. When
he again stands up, he repeats the same process in order to
draw closer and closer to God. After this repetition the adorer
sits in the posture of a humble slave and bears witness to his
vision of Unity and his consciousness of the prophethood of
the Prophet. Thus he sends his prayers and blessings upon the
Prophet and his family and descendants. Since the Prophet is
mercy to the entire creation (raḥmatun liʾlʿ-ālamīn), to send
blessings upon him means receiving in return from God
blessings and mercy upon the entire creation.

A distinctive character of prayer is that the adorer must keep

his vision, both external and internal, concentrated upon his
qiblah, which is ultimately none but God Himself. He is
forbidden to turn aside because turning prevents the adorer
from the contemplation of the Most Beloved.

Contemplation leads to and increases realization, and

realization deepens contemplation. This realization of God
through prayer varies according to the spiritual capacity
(al-istiʿdād) of the individual. This variation means that for

244
each individual there is a particular notion of God and his
own relationship with Him. The Sharīʿah insists on the
limitation of that individual notion and stresses the
transcendence of the essence of God. Whatever the individual
realizes is true for him at that stage of his spiritual journey,
but he must keep in mind that God transcends all such
realizations. Therefore, the striving to realize God must be
continuous until death. No one should be content with what
he realizes through the qalb, because the qalb goes on
changing and realization increases with greater perfection. As
prayer is
the means of progress toward God, it is also a means of
making us obey God’s orders and preventing us from doing
that which God has prohibited and forbidden. The more
complete the adorer’s submission and concentration, the
nearer is he to God and hence the more are his external
character and conduct under the control of internal dictates.
That is why the Quran says, “Prayer prevents transgressions
of passions and the grave sin” (XXIX, 4). It is this nearness
that made the Prophet say, “The freshness of my eyes is given
to me in prayer.”

245
15. “The Ka‘bah surrounded by Muslims,” Persian Miniature.

This realization and complete submission may not be

achieved by most people in prayer, but that does not
completely destroy the possibility for human beings to draw

246
closer to the Lord. The sincerity of man’s motives and the
submission of the body to the dictates of the Sharīʿah, insofar
as the form of the prayer is concerned, are primary
achievements. Even when the mind wavers, the will tries to
control it and bring back concentration and complete
submission. Thus, the benefits of realization are not lost. This
itself is a step toward complete annihilation.

Fasting (al-ṣawm)

Fasting is both external and internal. External compulsory

fasting is prescribed for all adult individuals during the lunar
month of Ramaḍān. All such individuals must not eat, drink,
smoke, or have sexual intercourse during daytime from dawn
to sunset. Normal life is permitted from sunset to dawn. By
internal fasting is meant the discipline imposed upon one’s
soul so that the self is restrained from indulging in passions
and desires and prevented from engaging itself in evils, such
as telling lies, backbiting, envy, jealousy, or pride. Another
stage of internal fasting is had when the muttaqī, the
God-fearing individual, abstains from even permitted things
for fear of going beyond limits. The next and the highest stage
of this kind of fasting is seen in those devoted adorers of God
who see God and nothing else and fast from the presence of
everything other than God.

It is to help an individual to proceed in the path of internal

fasting that external fasting is prescribed. “Cultivate within
yourself,” says the Prophet, “the Attributes of God.” Not to
eat, drink, or engage in sex is to transcend the physical
limitations of an individual and imitate the “habits” of God.
Bodily passions and desires become thereby weakened. The
spirit of man gains strength when he tries to obey God’s

247
orders and to restrain himself from those things that are
prohibited by God. Unless he does so, physical abstentions
alone cannot be counted as “fasting.” Such restraint
constitutes the minimum condition. Those who do not fulfill
this minimum condition and indulge in morally evil acts, such
as telling lies or backbiting, are the
people about whom the Prophet has said, “There are many
whose fasting is nothing beyond being hungry and thirsty.”
Both external and internal efforts are needed to fast properly.
It is not an easy thing, for example, to control anger. In the
month of fasting, this particular passion reaches almost
beyond control because man becomes irritable. He must
therefore keep constant watch over this and such other
passions, so that not only are they properly controlled, but
also they never gain the chance to control the individual.
Otherwise our fasting will be soiled, and instead of acquiring
benefits from external fasting we shall start committing sins.

The next stage of fasting is to abstain even from legally

permitted things. Even when anger or revenge is justified, the
individual restrains his anger and offers kindness instead; and
instead of claiming justice, he invokes and showers mercy.
Physically he limits his food and drink and sometimes
abstains from those kinds of food that tempt him or energize
physical passions, just to help his spirit have control over his
temptations and passions. This kind of fasting gives man what
in modern terminology is called “self-confidence,” which in
Sufi terminology will be called taṭmaʾinn al-qulūb, a peace
that descends on the heart from above, giving the feeling that
God has accepted this kind of fasting.

To reach that stage of complete peaceful confidence

(iṭmiʾnān) in which the self has surrendered wholly to God,

248
the last type of fasting is necessary. It is a kind of fasting in
which the individual abstains physically, mentally, and
spiritually from anything that draws a veil between him and
the Lord. God must become his only Beloved, his only goal,
his only aim. If anything else absorbs his soul, this kind of
fasting is immediately ruined and he has to start afresh to
rouse within him the fullness of that craving and the freshness
of that joy. It is with reference to this kind of fasting that God
says in a ḥadīth qudsī, “Fasting is for Me and I shall grant
reward for it Myself.”

The two joys of fasting that, according to the Prophet, a

person fasting is blessed with—ifṭār (breaking the fast) and
the vision of the new moon (of ʿīd after the month of
Ramaḍān)—refer to two other joys, the joy of seeing jannah
(paradise) after death and the joy of having the vision of God
after resurrection.

Pilgrimage (ḥajj)

Pilgrimage to Mecca is prescribed for all Muslims who can

physically and financially perform it. God has prescribed
certain rites that a pilgrim should observe properly. If he does
not do so, his pilgrimage is not accepted. The
most important and the essential obligatory rites are these: (1)
to put on iḥrām, which consists of two pieces of unsewn cloth
for men and covers all parts of the body except the face,
hands, and feet for women; and to observe the rules of iḥrām,
which are not to have sexual relationship, not to kill animals
or insects, and not to remove any hair from the body; (2) to
enter the city of Makkat al-Mukarramah (Mecca) and to
perform the ṭawāf al-qudūm, that is, to circumambulate the
Kaʿbah, the house of God, seven times; (3) to be at ʿArafāt,

249
which is a plain near Mecca, even if it is for a short while, on
the ninth day of the lunar month of Dhuʾl-ḥijjah; (4) to spend
the night at a place near Mecca called Muzdalifah; (5) to
throw stones at the three places where Satan tried to tempt the
prophet Ismāʿīl or Ishmael, the first son of Abraham; (6) to
sacrifice an animal at Minā in commemoration of the sacrifice
that Abraham decided to make of his son Ismāʿīl; (7) to
perform ṫawāf again; (8) to drink the water of Zamzam;4 (9)
to perform two rakʿahs of prayer at the place known as
Maqām Ibrāhīm, the place where Abraham and his son stood
and prayed after building the Kaʿbah. If numbers (1), (2), (3),
and (7) of these rites are performed, then the basic rites are
said to have been observed. Even if the other rites are not
performed properly, the pilgrimage is said to have been
performed. But if the other rites are not observed, the pilgrim
is expected to give compensation; otherwise his pilgrimage
will remain defective.

Just as in the case of other rites, such as ṣalāt and ṣawm, in

the case of ḥajj also the primary condition is purity of
intention (niyyah). The pilgrim must intend to perform the
pilgrimage only and not to indulge in any business
transactions or something else. To perform the pilgrimage
means to leave all worldly activities aside and proceed to
meet the Lord. Purity of intention will be assessed by man
himself. If his mind is invaded by worries about the life he
has left in the hands of others, he has not been able to purify
his intention. When a person puts on the pilgrim’s garb
(iḥrām), leaves his house, and proceeds toward the Kaʿbah, he
must behave as if he is a dead man having no control over his
life and worldly activities. From that time until the ḥajj is
over, he should concentrate fully on his pilgrimage to the
Lord, pray for forgiveness and enlightenment, and devote

250
himself to dhikr, which means nothing other than constant
repetition of and concentration upon Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh (There
is no divinity but God). To enter Mecca and to perform ṭawāf
means to enter the holy place where the first house of God on
earth was established and to circumambulate the house that is
the reflection of that Divine House in the Seventh Heaven,
above and beyond which stands the glorified Throne of God,
around which all angels and the entire creation are constantly
rotating.

16. The faithful gathering at ‘Arafāt during the ceremony of

the ḥajj.

251
17. Pilgrims drinking from the Zamzam.

Through the circumambulation (ṭawāf), the pilgrim

participates with the angels and other creatures in their
circumambulation of the Divine Throne. Going around the
Kaʿbah with the purity of intention to meet the Lord can
become fully beneficial only if the heart continues to be
purified of everything except God. The qalb must by now
become engaged in the constant remembrance of ism al-Dhāt,
which is nothing other than the Name Allāh. The qalb thus
becomes purified of everything except God and enjoys both
repeating with spiritual tongue and hearing with spiritual ears

252
this dhikr in which, as God has said in the Quran, the entire
creation is engaged. The next stage of the ḥajj is that of
staying in the field of ʿArafāt. This is the stage of prayer
(munājāt). It was in this field that Ādam (Adam) and Ḥawwāʾ
(Eve) met after their expulsion from heaven, and it was on the
Mount of Mercy (Jabal al-raḥmān) in this plain that their
prayer for forgiveness was accepted. It was also in this field
that at night God brought out from the back of Ādam all the
souls that would come to earth until doomsday and asked
them, “Am I not your Lord?” To which each of them
answered, “Yes” (VII, 172). This exchange signifies the
covenant between man and God to which God refers several
times in the Quran—the covenant that man asks God to
fulfill. God reminds man and then teaches him to say that his
life and activities are all for Him alone and that he has been
created only to worship God. To come to ʿArafāt is to become
fully conscious of that covenant and to remember that “He”
alone is all in all. All the pilgrims (ḥujjāj) are engaged in
prayer. They must pray for forgiveness for every act and
thought that separated them from their Lord. In other words,
their consciousness of the duality of purpose and action, of
the world and for the ākhirah (life after death), of society and
God, of what made them commit the sin of polytheism (shirk)
unknowingly must be realized to the full and cast aside, so
that they can relive the time of the covenant. Those who can
do so become truly purified. They alone know what pleasure
is derived from the dhikr of Hū (He).5 ʿArafāt is thus the
place for reaching the pinnacle of the consciousness of God.
From there the pilgrims proceed to Muzdalifah, where they
spend the night in prayer and meditation establishing within
themselves the realization achieved at ʿArafāt. That is why
this is the place for the dhikr of the Divine Names al-Ḥayy,
al-Qayyūm (the Living, the Self-Sustained). From Muzdalifah

253
the pilgrims go to Minā to throw stones at Satan and to
sacrifice some animal in the Name of God. Satan tried to
deceive Abraham and Ishmael, but they realized who he was
and threw stones at him. This external action of throwing
pebbles at three stone blocks must be accompanied by an
inner urge to kill or drive away the satan that is whispering
within oneself. If the pilgrim is
not conscious of this meaning, his throwing of stones remains
an external act without any impact on his being.

18. The Ka‘bah, Mecca.

254
19. The embroidery of the Kiswah, the cloth covering of the
Ka‘bah, woven by the members of the same guild over the
centuries.

The next action of the ḥajj is that of sacrifice. Abraham tried

to sacrifice his own son Ishmael. The complete cooperation of
his son in this act and the literal interpretation of the dream by
Abraham, in which he was asked by God to sacrifice that
which was dearest to him, are both acts that are not normal.
That human sacrifice is neither desirable nor permissible in
religion is proved by the way God ended this trial by
substituting a ram in the place of Ishmael and by ordering
Abraham to open his eyes and to realize that God had already
accepted his sacrifice. Abraham could have interpreted his
dream but he did not do so. The sacrifice of the dearest thing,
such as one’s life, for the cause of God is the final test of
man’s total surrender. Here both the father and the son were

255
put to such a test. It was a severe test. Nor did either of them
ever dream that God would intervene. Human sacrifice would
have been seen as legal had this been allowed to happen.
God’s intervention legitimized the sacrifice of a life for a
life—a ram for the son—but forbade human sacrifice. This
act also symbolizes the sacrifice of man’s nafs (self) before
God, seen as the Name al-Qahhār (the Victorious), the Name
that signifies the total annihilation (fanāʾ) of man. The
sacrifice of the animal does not remain an external act,
because the pilgrim is consciously or unconsciously involved
in glorifying that al-Qahhār aspect of God’s Attributes.
Through this sacrifice a pilgrim is symbolically sacrificing
himself and fulfilling the obligation of the covenant on the
basis of which God has taught man this verse: “Say, Verily,
my prayers, my sacrifice, my life and my death are for God,
the Lord of the world who hath no peer.” This sacrifice thus
spiritually symbolizes the sacrifice of al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah
at the altar of God the Qahhār. In the spiritual journey to the
Lord, the annihilation or fanāʾ thus achieved is accompanied
by the removal of the veil of kufr, or unbelief, between the
adorer and the well-beloved Lord.

The shaving of the head of the pilgrim or the cutting off of the
hair of women symbolizes the next stage of man’s spiritual
progress—the removal of all stains of human attributes from
the essential spirit breathed into the body by God. If one can
attain to that stage, he can visualize the beauty of the Lord
directly.

The Prophet has said that there are two stations behind the
Throne of God—one of belief and the other of unbelief. The
former creates a white veil and the other a dark veil between
the slave and the Lord. The dark veil is removed when, along

256
with the physical journey, a pilgrim succeeds in completing
his spiritual journey. The other veil is removed when the final
circumambulations of the Kaʿbah are performed. If man’s
pilgrimage has been completed both externally and internally
and his realizations are as depicted above, then he must once
again go seven times around the Kaʿbah, feeling this time as
if he is going around the Throne of God. He is then entitled
by God to enter into the station of nearness to the Almighty,
Whose vision he achieves. It is to this achievement of direct
vision of the Lord that God refers when He says, “And He
made them drink the purest of drinks” (LXXVI, 21). This is
symbolized externally by the drinking of the water of the holy
well Zamzam after the completion of the circumambulation.
When a person attains to this stage of consciousness, all veils
are removed and he talks to the Lord without any veil
between them.

The final stage of the ḥajj is the ṭawāf al-wadāʿ

(circumambulation of farewell) or ṭawāf al-ṣadr
(circumambulation of the breast) and return to one’s
homeland. The pilgrim’s real homeland is, of course, the
place of his spiritual origin, about which God has said that He
made man in the best of forms and then cast him to the realm
of the lowest of the low (XCV, 5). This ṭawāf symbolizes
man’s detachment from the lowest region and his journey to
that region which is the highest of the high, his real
homeland.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī describes this aspect of

pilgrimage as Ḥajj al-ṭarīqah (the pilgrimage in the spiritual
path). This is the real significance of the various rites about
which God says in the Quran, “Such is the pilgrimage.

257
Whoever honors the sacred rites of God, for him it is good in
the sight of his Lord” (XXII, 30).

Jihād

Islam is a religion of peace, but it prescribes war as the last

resort to ward off the enemy, secure peace, and establish
security so that God’s prescribed way of life is maintained
and not destroyed. That is why God says in the Quran, “And
if God had not replied to one group of people by means of
another, the earth would have been filled with chaos” (II, 25).
God also has said that jihād is to repel all evil forces and
destroy or control them. “Those who follow the way of Faith
fight in the Way of God and those who follow the way of
disbelief fight in the way of the devil. So fight against the
helpers of Satan with this conviction. Satan’s crafty schemes
are in fact very weak and bound to fail” (IV, 76).

The primary meaning of jihād is exertion or use of effort, of

which only a particular kind is identified with fighting. Even
in this sense of the word, jihād means fighting in the Way of
God against the forces of evil with life and wealth in order to
make God’s Way prevail on the earth and not
fighting for any worldly cause. Sincerity and purity of motive
and the condition of society must justify such an action. If
anyone wants personal fame and glory, he is not a mujāhid, a
fighter in the Way of God. Someone asked the Prophet, “One
man fights for booty, one for the reputation of fighting and
one for his quality (of bravery) to be witnessed; which of
them is in God’s Way?” The Prophet replied, “The one who
fights that God’s Word may have preeminence is following
God’s Way.” The sincerity of this motive must also involve
the degree of the fighter’s love for God and the Prophet. A

258
mujāhid must love God, His Messenger, and striving in His
Way more than his wealth, relations, and his own life. God
says in the Quran, “O Prophet, tell them plainly, If your
fathers and your sons and your brothers and your wives, and
your near and dear ones and the wealth you have acquired and
the trade you fear may decline and the homes which delight
you—if all these things are dearer to you than God and His
Messenger and striving in His Way, then wait until God
passes judgment on you for God does not guide the wicked
people’” (IX, 24). All Muslims must be mujāhids because
they must resist evil individually and collectively. When the
condition of society is such that there is danger of elimination
of the faithful, then the faithful must try to resist the spread of
evil through fighting with their works or their pen. If that is
also not possible, then internally they should resist the evil
and not allow it to conquer their hearts. The last alternative is
to leave the land of corruption and go to some place where
fighting in the Way of God may be carried out. Jihād,
therefore, is a compulsory function of a Muslim for both
internal and external purification, purification of the
individual and of society by resisting, fighting, and
conquering the forces of evil. The test of this jihād lies in the
sincerity with which the individual undertakes this task.

Jihād compels an individual to test himself through his

sincerity and love for God and the Prophet. That love for God
and the Prophet means love for the good, for selflessness, for
all that God has prescribed and the Prophet has exemplified in
order to lead man toward the final goal of mankind. That goal
is to fulfill the function of vicegerency of God (khalīfat Allāh)
on earth and hatred of all evil forces, including oppression,
injustice, falsehood, cheating, backbiting, suppression of
human freedom, and denial of basic human rights guaranteed

259
in the Quran. Thus, although external jihād is necessary at
different times for the purification of society, internal jihād is
a constant action that must go on within man so that he may
distinguish between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice,
and right and wrong and kindle within himself the love for the
good. Unless he tries to do so, he will probably falter or fail at
the time of external jihād and be in the category of the
“losers” (II, 27).

20. Woven miniature of the Ka‘bah.

260
21. The faithful prostrating before the Ka‘bah.

This internal jihād is more difficult and subtle than the

external jihād. That is why when the companions returned
from an early jihād the Prophet welcomed them and added

261
that they had now come from the smaller jihād (al-jihād
al-aṣghar) to the greater jihād (al-jihād al-akbar). The
companions were surprised and inquired what that greater
jihād could be. The Prophet replied, “Jihād with one’s lower
self (nafs).”

The nafs (self) is a difficult object to define. The Quran

describes three different stages of nafs in man. The lowest
and the most corrupt stage is that of al-nafs al-ammārah (the
evil nafs, XII, 53), at which stage man is completely under the
control of the evil forces within and outside himself. If man
remains at this stage, he is defeated in jihād. He becomes
himself a slave of evil forces and his self listens to the
promptings of the evil jinn. Every individual, said the
Prophet, has been given an angel by God to assist him in the
right path, and an evil jinn by Satan to mislead him. Although
the spirit (rūḥ) of man is always pure, it has become almost
inactive because of these evil forces, including those forces
within the self that are generated by the worldly elements that
constitute his body and attract him toward this worldly life. In
the case of many human beings, the self has become deaf to
the suggestions of the angel, and it deliberately leads man
toward the path of spiritual destruction. People of this kind
struggle collectively at the social level to prevent the good
from prevailing.

When the spirit of man tries to reassert itself and when with
the help of God he becomes conscious of his condition, he
begins to exert himself spiritually, to carry out jihād and to
repent; but sometimes he wavers and falls and again recovers.
This is the stage of internal jihād that is described in the
Quran as a stage when the soul is called al-nafs al-lawwāmah

262
(self-reproaching soul, LXXV, 2). This is the stage that may
be described as “the pricking of man’s conscience.”

The next stage is attained by the self when, through

remembrance of God and invocation (dhikr Allāh), man’s
spirit (rūḥ) starts dominating the soul and he is able to control
the evil forces within himself thoroughly. Man achieves
complete peace and satisfaction by submitting fully to the will
of God. This is the stage of al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah
(LXXXIX, 27). Man is finally able to win real victory in his
jihād. It is at this stage of victory that the soul is also
described by the Quran as rāḍiyatan-marḍiyyatan (satisfied
and satisfying), a stage in which God’s Will and man’s will
act in unison. In a ḥadīth qudsī this stage has been described
as that stage of consciousness when God acts through man’s
eyes, ears, hands, and feet and man does whatever God wills.
Whatever man wills is also accepted by God because man
cannot do anything but good at that stage (LXXIX, 28;
XCVIII, 8).

Man must carry on jihād both internally and externally—the

former to purify himself and control the evil forces and keep a
watch over the frontiers of the soul and the latter to stop or
prevent aggression and oppression or save the faithful and the
Faith from being annihilated by the evil forces in society.

In both cases man’s highest glory is achieved when he

becomes a shahīd (martyr). In external jihād, if a mujāhid is
killed, he becomes a martyr. In internal jihād also, a stage is
reached when the spirit and the body become separated and
the nafs is made to suffer the pangs of actual death. Man,
therefore, becomes a shahīd, a martyr, although his state may

263
remain unknown to others. It is about this death that the
Prophet has said, “Die before you die.”

Those who can kill their nafs in this manner as well as those
who sacrifice the physical self for God reach the status of
shahīd. These shuhadāʾ (martyrs) are, according to the Quran,
forever alive: “Do not regard as dead those who have been
slain in the Way of God; they are really alive and are well
provided for by their Lord” (III, 169). Their rank is very high
in the eyes of God, as is said in the Quran, “Those who
believe and have left their homes and striven hard with their
wealth and their lives in God’s Way, have the highest rank in
the sight of God” (IX, 20). That is why the Prophet said, “By
God, Him in Whose Hand is my soul, I wish I could be killed
in God’s Way and brought to life, then be killed and brought
to life, then be killed and brought to life, then be killed.” This
ḥadīth indicates that in the field of battle, provided it is a
battle in the path of God, a person can become a martyr even
if he has not undergone the hardships of an ascetic who kills
his nafs by surrendering his body and soul to God and by
becoming martyred inwardly. Therefore, the fact that through
the lesser jihād one may achieve the benefits of the greater
jihād indicates further that it is easy for a person who has won
a victory in the greater jihād to participate in the lesser jihād,
because he has already killed his nafs. He is already fully
prepared to sacrifice his body over and over again for God, if
that were possible, because by killing his nafs, such a person
has, in a sense, already performed the sacrifice of his body.
That is why such people and those who are killed on the
battlefield for the preservation of the Faith are not dead but
have already gained immortal life in paradise.

Notes

264
1. There are certain minor differences in various schools of
Islamic Law concerning parts of the rite of purification, but
the main elements are the same in all schools.

2. ʿAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī, Sirr al-asrār (Lahore, n.d.) 158.

3. As mentioned earlier, the ḥadīth qudsī is a Divine Word

uttered by the Prophet but not a part of the Quran. In the
ḥadīth qudsī, God speaks in the first person through the
mouth of the Prophet.

4. Zamzam, the spring near the Kaʿbah whose water gushed

forth, according to tradition, at the moment when Hagar, the
mother of Ismāʿīl, was looking desperately for water to
quench the thirst of her child, symbolizes for Muslims the
water of paradise.

5. The supreme invocation referring to God’s Essence and the

final syllable of the Name Allāh.

265
266
 7

The Spiritual Dimension of Prayer

ALLAHBAKHSH K. BROHI

The Command to Pray

TO BEGIN WITH, IT OUGHT TO BE NOTICED by a

student of Islam that prayer is a duty prescribed for the
believer directly by the command of God. Thus, there is an
order to pray and, what is more, to translate literally the
commandment of the Quran, there is an order to establish
prayer, aqīmuʾl-ṣalāh. This commandment is absolutely
binding. There are minor exceptions as when one is ill in a
manner such that he cannot pray. One is ordered to pray even
in war. This sense of obligation to pray is in reference to the
formalized and institutionalized ritual prayer, which is to be
performed five times a day. Although one can perform this
prayer by oneself, the value of the prayer is enhanced if it is
performed in congregation in a mosque. The ritual prayer,
over and above its direct benefit to the individual, has a social
aspect in that it brings one closer to his fellow men and
promotes the life of the community by integrating its
members into a fraternal feeling of oneness. The community
prayer is led by an imam, who is the leader of the prayer. The
rest stand in straight rows behind him and follow his
commands and the prescribed course of movements necessary
for completing the prayer.

267
The Canonical Prayers

The meaning of prayer in Islam and its link with the process
of spiritualization of the being of man can be best understood
if the very first chapter of the Quran, called Sūrat al-fātiḥah
(literally, “The Opening Chapter”), is properly understood.
This is so because that chapter (which has to be recited in
every unit or rakʿah and which is a necessary component of
the
prayer process) sets forth the essence of the prayer, if not the
soul of religion itself. The chapter consists of seven verses,
which many scholars have treated as the quintessence of the
whole of the Quran.

It has rightly been placed as a preface to the sacred Book

because, in some sense, these seven oft-repeated verses are
none other than what the Quran itself describes as sabʿan min
al-mathānī (seven of the oft-repeated verses) in the following
verse: “We have given Thee [i.e. the Prophet] seven of the
oft-repeated [verses], and the mighty Quran” (XV, 87). The
Prophet is on record as saying that these seven oft-repeated
verses are in reference to the Sūrat al-fātiḥah, which is as
follows:

(1) Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being,

(2) the All-Merciful, the All-compassionate,

(3) the Master of the Day of Doom.

(4) Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succour.

(5) Guide us in the straight path,

(6) the path of those whom Thou hast blessed,

268
(7) not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray.

It should be noticed that structurally the content of this

opening chapter falls into three parts. The first is
acknowledgment of the fact that praise and gratitude are due
to Allah, Who is the Lord of the worlds (or universes) and
Who is beneficent and compassionate: He is the Master of the
Day that comes at the end of time, on which man will meet
his Lord and give account of what he has done in his life. In
the next phase, man makes a direct address to God and
undertakes the commitment to serve Him alone and to ask
help from Him alone. In the third and last phase, that help is
elaborated in the form of a plea and invocation that the Lord
guide the believers on the right path, this being the path (a) of
those upon whom He has bestowed His favors and (b) not of
those upon whom wrath is brought down nor (c) of those who
go astray.

Thus, praise for the merciful Maker, Who is the Judge of

man’s deeds, and a commitment to serve only Him and to
seek only His help finally and inevitably take the form of a
supplication by the believer: to be guided to follow the right
path so as to win God’s favors and to be spared from having
to suffer God’s wrath, or to follow the path of those who go
astray.

Since man’s life is in the making, he cannot conceivably

know in advance what destiny is in store for him and what his
situation is in the scheme of things. He is not directly aware
of the purpose for which life is given to him. Islam makes the
believer conscious of the existence of God, Who is the
sovereign Lord and Master of the universe and of man. God is

269
worthy of man’s praise. Furthermore, God is merciful, and
with Him is the final
judgment concerning what man has made of his life. The
commitment he is called upon to make, in order to acquit
himself creditably in the trials that confront him in this life, is
to submit steadfastly to the Divine Law by serving God alone
(thereby denying submission to any power apart from God)
and to seek only His help. The help sought by man is that he
be guided to follow the right path, which is a path of those for
whom God has shown his favors and not of those on whom
His wrath has descended or of those who have gone astray.
When this prayer (Fātiḥah) is recited in any rakʿah, a portion
of the Quran is read thereafter, and the belief is that that
portion of the Quran which spontaneously wells forth from
the interior depth of man’s being is in response to the
believer’s invocation “show me the straight path.” It contains
God’s answer to him and has reference to the guidance that he
had asked for. Thus, the Islamic prayer is a means of
communion of the human soul with its Creator, Who alone
knows what destiny lies ahead for him and how it is to be
realized by him in terms of the guidance he receives. Since
“God does not directly speak to man except through the
prophets” (XLII, 51), the portion of the Quran which is the
Word of God recited by man is also God’s response to man in
the situation in which he finds himself placed in this life.
Prayer thus helps man to perfect himself by traversing the
path which leads to earning the pleasure of his Creator and
avoiding His displeasure. To pray in this sense is inherent in
the very nature of man. He needs to pray if only because,
quite aside from this Divine Guidance that comes to man,
there is no other intimation given to him about how best to
conduct himself in life to be able to reach his appointed goal

270
and to realize his prescribed destiny. The benefit of prayer is
alluded to in the Quran, where the prophet Noah says,

Seek pardon of your Lord. Lo! He is ever forgiving.

He will let loose the sky for you in plenteous rain,

and will help you with wealth and sons,

and will assign unto you gardens and

will assign unto you rivers.

What aileth you that ye hope not toward Allāh for dignity

When He created you by (diverse) stages?

(LXXI, 10–14)

These last words undoubtedly speak of the development of

man by stages and the various conditions through which he
passes, beginning with his prenatal life in the womb of his
mother on to his final end, viz., his death on earth. His prayer
is linked with his supplication to this Lord to help him
to realize these stages of his growth and orderly development
consistent with that destiny which is prescribed for him to
realize. Similarly, even the functional value of prayer has
been set forth in clear-cut terms:

[O Muḥammad] Recite that which hath been inspired in thee of the Scripture,
and establish worship [prayer]. Lo! worship preserveth from lewdness and
iniquity, but verily remembrance of Allah is more important. And Allah
knoweth what ye do. (XXIX, 45)

The Remembrance of God

271
It should be noticed that recitation of the Quran and the
keeping up of prayer or remembrance (dhikr) of the Blessed
Name Allāh converge upon one and the same focal point, that
is, the development of man’s awareness, which is fostered by
meditation upon the revealed Word of God and is fortified by
obedience to what God wants him to do. For the believer, the
revelation of the Quran is an act which is itself evidence of
the Mercy of God, in that it was revealed to man for his
benefit and to help him to cope with the problems of life.
Continual and constant remembrance of God’s Name or
recitation of His revealed Word is one sure way of acquiring
nearness (qurb) to Him. Prayer acts as a constraining
influence upon the animal impulses of man and keeps him
away from things that are foul, ugly, and unclean.

Prayer as Protection

It would appear that one of the important roles of Islamic

prayer is to act as a protection against the defilement and
contamination that affect man’s life. When a man lives his
life with consciousness of his link with the Lord, he acquires
an inward disposition to absorb God’s Attributes and obtains
the capacity to resist evil. If a piece of iron has to be kept for
long under water without rusting, the only way to achieve this
difficult result is to take it out periodically, oil it, and then
place it in the water again. So is it also the case with man. If
five times a day he were to remove himself from the
corrupting taint of worldly transactions in which he is apt to
lose himself and were to make an effort consciously to
identify himself with the pursuit of the supreme goal for
which he has been created and were to seek persistently from
his Creator the help he needs to steer clear of the possibility
of deviating from the straight path, which is his appointed

272
destiny to traverse if he is to be saved, then there can be no
doubt that he would succeed in adhering to the path of
righteousness.

Institutionalized Prayer

That prayer has been a perennial institution of all prophetic

religions is attested to by the Quran over and over again, as,
for instance, in relation to the prophet Moses:

And We inspired Moses and his brother, (saying): appoint houses for your
people in Egypt and make your houses oratories, and establish worship
[prayer] and give good news to the believers. (X, 88)

The Israelites, it will be recalled, were obliged to pray in their

houses since they did not enjoy full religious liberty in Egypt
and did not have the freedom to establish public places of
worship.

That prayer in Islam can also be petitionary is attested to by

several verses in the Quran. There man is invited to ask his
Lord for the satisfaction of his needs, with the implied
assurance that his Lord would certainly accede to his request.
More specifically, it has been said that the Prophet’s
acceptance of alms from those who offer it sincerely, after
confessing their faults, would clean and purify them. The
Prophet is asked to pray for them:

Take alms of their wealth, wherewith thou mayst purify them and mayst
make them grow, and pray for them. Lo! thy prayer is an assuagement for
them.

Allah is Hearer, Knower.

273
Know they not that Allah is He Who accepteth repentance from His bondmen
and taketh the alms, and that Allah is He Who is the Relenting, Merciful?
(IX, 103–4)

It is further said:

Pray unto Me, and I will hear you. (XL, 60)

And again:

Is not He (best) Who answereth the wronged one when he crieth unto Him
and removeth the evil, and hath made you viceroys of the earth? (XXVII, 62)

The ritual prayer in Islam must be performed at fixed times.

This helps to build man’s conscious dependence upon God. It
helps him to so conduct his affairs in life that the possibility
of his committing sins is minimized, if not eliminated. In this
context it should be noticed that prayer is to be performed
even when one is engaged in fighting a war:

When ye have performed the act of worship [prayer], remember Allah,

standing, sitting and reclining and when ye are in safety, observe proper
worship [prayer]. (IV, 103)

Prayer indeed has been enjoined on the believers at fixed

times as a duty, and it can be shortened when one is traveling
(IV, 101).

Thus, Muslim prayer, or what has been called in this article

the ritual prayer, is a disciplined activity regulated in
meticulous detail by the law of Islam. And yet the Quran is
quick to warn that prayer, when devoid of its real spirit, is not
acceptable:

So woe to those that pray and are heedless of their prayers, to those who
make display and refuse charity. (CVII, 4–8)

274
Prayer as prescribed in Islam is a conscious act: the highest
level of perfection in prayer is, as pointed out in a ḥadīth: “So
pray as if you see God for if you do not see Him, He
nevertheless sees you.” In conformity with the demands of
religious Law, one must pray in all conditions; but one
enhances the efficaciousness of prayer if it is done in a spirit
of detachment from the world and its ways. One must pray
with serenity and calmness in one’s heart and with singleness
of devotion, thoroughness of concentration, and a sense of
complete dedication to the Holy of the Holies.

Constant Prayer and Invocation

Apart from obligatory prayers, there are supererogatory

prayers (nawāfil); indeed, in view of the total thrust of the
message of the Quran it could be said that prayerful attitude is
as large as life itself and that it is coextensive with its total
range and activity. Through prayer we not only obey the Lord
who is Lord of the worlds but also are privileged in being
beneficiaries of the spiritual influence of His Divine Presence.
We are transformed from darkness to illumination in Its light
when we say repeatedly in the course of prayer, Allāhu akbar
(“God is most great”). One must pray fervently, ceaselessly,
and with full awareness of the Divine Presence. This is the
most indispensable means for securing the fullest measure of
realization of the spiritual potentialities of one’s life and the
surest method of fulfilling the commitment of the slave to
serve his Lord and Master.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, the famous author of the Mathnawī, says

that a piece of iron when kept for long in fire begins not only
to look like fire but also to burn like fire. The soul of man in
prayer soaks the substance of his being in the divine ocean of

275
light and grace and draws nourishment from it. This helps
him to obtain the purification of his nafs or lower self. Then
he traverses the pathway to God. By engaging himself in the
prayer of the heart, he lays himself open to the healing
influences that emanate from the Holy Spirit. The Quran
pertinently points out:

Who have believed and whose hearts have rest in the remembrance of Allah.
Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest! (XIII, 28)

22. Prayer around the Ka‘bah.

There are many references in the Quran that point out the
value of invoking constantly God’s Holy Name: “Say Allah:
Then leave them alone, playing their game of plunging” (VI,
92). Constant invocation of the Supreme Name (Allāh) or one
of His ninety-nine attributive Names brings about peace in the
soul of man, a peace that surpasses all understanding. It

276
deepens one’s state of consciousness, enables one to have
glimpses of eternal truths, and transforms human
consciousness into a transparent medium through which
God’s light passes to illuminate the interior being of man.

One can refer to some of the relevant verses of the Quran that
highlight the Islamic approach to prayer at the level of iḥsān
(literally, beauty or virtue), which is the highest level where
effective communion between the believer and his God takes
place:

Whosoever surrendereth his purpose to Allah while doing good, his reward is
with his Lord: and there shall no fear come upon them nor shall they grieve.
(II, 112; see also IV, 125; XXXI, 22)

In Islam, prayer is basically an attempt on the part of man to

turn to God—that is, an attempt to transcend himself in the
direction of the highest perfection and most majestic
presence, which we attribute, on the authority of the Quran, to
God, Who is the Lord and Master of the Universe. In the
Quran, there is a reference also to the believers’ meeting with
the Lord. The highest reward of the believers is that, on the
Day of Judgment, their faces will be bright while looking to
their Lord. The actual verses are:

That day will faces be resplendent,

Looking toward their Lord;

And that day will other faces be despondent,

Thou wilt know that some great disaster is about to fall on them.

(LXXV, 22–25)

Prayer and the Vision of God

277
The expression ilā rabbihā nāẓiratun, which means “looking
toward or gazing upon their Lord,” tends to underscore the
highest reward for the believer, which is comprehensible only
in visionary terms. Prayer at its highest level of perfection is
an attempt on earth by the believer to behold the Face of the
Lord and to derive, however indirect it be, the bliss and the
joy that come from such a vision. The ultimate end for the
believer is thus to earn the reward of beholding the vision of
the Lord. According to the conception of prayer in Islam, the
supreme opportunity that life provides
is to turn to God consciously and purposively and to
contemplate the beauty of His Face and His manifold
Attributes. This helps man to secure the transformation of his
being and to make it a fit vehicle upon which God’s light and
grace may descend. It is true that in the Quran it is said:

The vision (of men) comprehendeth Him (God) not but He comprehendeth all
vision. He is subtle, the Aware. (XVI, 104)

But this does not mean anything more than the fact that the
limited powers of perception with which man is endowed
cannot grasp in its fullness the beauty of the Face of God. Nor
again does this mean that man is incapable of having even
glimpses of the Face of the Lord. Indeed, there is an
assurance in the Quran that wherever man turns, there is the
Face of God. The reference to the Lord of the Throne, making
the Spirit descend on whomsoever He pleases with His
permission, is meant to emphasize the transcendence of God
and the fact that the human being cannot, by himself, have
access to the life of the Spirit. It points to God’s grace, with
which He condescends to favor His servants with intimation
of His Presence (see XL, 15). God says: “They apprehend
nothing of His knowledge except what He wills” (II, 255–56).

278
On the last Day of Reckoning there will be faces which will
be allowed to behold God’s Face. His Messenger has
proclaimed to his community that on that day they shall see
the Lord as one sees the moon in full moonlight. Those
radiant faces that will gaze upon the Lord will perhaps recall
that in their earthly careers they were in some sense aware of
the beauty of His Face and that when the veil will have been
finally lifted, they will not be taken unaware; for of old, God
had imparted His spirit to Adam.

The rūḥ (spirit) is the uncreated element lodged in man’s

being. This enables him to have knowledge of God
(maʿrifah). Prayer is a process of preparation on earth to
enable him to meet his Maker. The life to come is a
continuation of this life, provided this life is lived by man
earnestly and resolutely in an effort to fulfill the Law that the
revealed Word of God has brought to his notice. Considering
what has been said above as a preface, the meaning of the
following verses becomes clear and gives full scope to the
longing of those who pray, who serve and wait for the Lord’s
gifts to come to them:

We shall show them Our portents on the horizons and within themselves until
it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth. Doth not thy Lord suffice,
since He is Witness over all things? How are they still in doubt about the
meeting with their Lord? Lo! Is not He surrounding all things? (XLI, 53–54)

Prayer as Communion

Enough has been said in the foregoing to emphasize the

cardinal principle of Islamic prayer, namely, that it is man’s
communion with the Divine. From the time the believer hears
the call to prayers coming from a mosque nearby, in response
to this invitation to say the prayer and to achieve success

279
(falāḥ), he proceeds to put on ritually clean dress and to
perform the prescribed ablution to secure his physical
cleanliness. He then declares his intention to pray by standing
either by himself or in congregation behind an imam in the
Divine Presence in all humility after he has pronounced the
takbīr (God is most great). He recites the Sūrat al-fātiḥah,
supplements it with a portion of the Quran, goes into rukūʿ by
kneeling down, and says, “Praise be to God the most exalted.”
Then he bows down and prostrates himself by putting his
forehead on the ground and says, “Praise be to God the most
high.” Thereafter he sits in a reverential position to recite
prescribed words called tashahhud and declares that God is
one and Muḥammad is His slave and Messenger. He also
invokes peace and prayers upon the Prophet of Islam and also
upon the prophet Abraham. He finishes the prayer by saying
as-salāmu ʿalaykum wa raḥmat Allāh (Peace be upon you and
the mercy of God), turning his face to the right and then to the
left. He thus ends his prayer by sending the salutation of
peace and Mercy of God on all those who have been on either
side of him engaged in prayer.

The invocation of God’s prayer and peace upon the Prophet

of Islam as also upon the prophet Abraham, who is the
founder of monotheistic religion, is in the nature of the
believer’s affirmation of the continuity in the development of
universal religion. It is an acknowledgment of man’s
indebtedness to God for the revelation that He has sent to His
prophets, who are His chosen representatives. After all, it is
through their intercession that the revealed Word of God has
reached man and has enabled him to participate in the grand
process of self-purification and self-transformation. Rightly
regarded, prayer would appear to be the most important of all
the prescribed rituals, if only because it makes concrete that

280
which is subscribed in the abstract, namely, belief in the
world of the unseen. Prayer helps man to realize the existence
of the Divine, which in turn enables him to fulfill the Law. In
keeping his faith with the Divine he becomes useful to his
fellow men and is able to do his labor here below in his
capacity as God’s vicegerent on earth.

The congregational prayer provides additionally the

opportunity to strengthen man’s relations with his fellow men
and to develop that sense of inner belonging to the
community, or to the ummah, without which the unity of
mankind and, therefore, peace on earth cannot be realized.
The
physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of prayer
make possible the total absorption of man’s being in the
Divine and enable God’s grace and light to descend in his
soul. The moment he says the takbīr, Allāhu akbar (God is
most great), he in effect detaches himself from the world and
turns in humility to the Divine Being by acknowledging His
Uniqueness, His Sovereignty and His Mercy. Muslim prayer
is not a part-time activity; it is a continual act of dedication to
the end that the Divine Purpose inherent in man’s creation is
fulfilled.

Prayer and the Challenges of Life

In the Quran there is a reference to the efficaciousness of

seeking assistance through patience and prayer:

Seek help in patience and prayer; and truly it is hard save for the
humble-minded,

Who know that they will have to meet their Lord, and that unto Him they are
returning. (II, 45–46)

281
In this world, where man is called upon to live, for him to go
through ordeals, face trials, or suffer tribulations is not easy.
Indeed, it is the lot of all mankind to go through these tests.
The Quran seems to point out that one way to cope with the
challenge that life on earth poses is through patience and
prayer. But patience and prayer are not easy in the face of
hardships and troubles; man must be convinced that he is
bound to meet his Lord and return to Him. This thought is the
keynote of man’s relation with his Maker: man has to render
account to God of what he has done to keep the Law. He must
therefore stay humble and obey the Law.

Prayer and Almsgiving

In addition to prayer, man is ordered also to give zakāt, the

prescribed contribution to the poor. It is one of the mysteries
of the Quran that it has imposed the duty to pray along with
the duty to give zakāt. It would appear that the
efficaciousness of the prayer is very much dependent on what
man is freely able to give from his wealth in the Name of
God. This is not merely a case of performing charity but of
securing his purification, which is suggested by the use of the
word zakāt (zakā-yazkī means “to purify”). It seems as if man
is carrying a bone-breaking burden of wealth on his head as
he is traveling on his way to God, and he is advised that by
giving zakāt he would be able to jettison this burden. No
wonder that prayer was likened
by the Prophet of Islam to the flowing of a river that passes at
one’s doorstep. Abū Hurayrah quotes the Prophet:

If one of you has a river at his door in which he washes himself five times a
day, what do you think of him? Would it leave any dirt on him? The
companion said it would not leave any dirt on him as he would be perfectly

282
clean. The Prophet said, This is an example of five prayers with which Allah
washes off all the evils of man.

Both prayer and the giving of zakāt are calculated to purify

men: it will be recalled that the Prophet was explicitly
enjoined to purify the believers (LXII, 2) (yuzakkīhim).

Inner Prayer

The holy Quran speaks of the faithful as those who remember

Allah standing and sitting and lying on their sides (III, 19).
This again shows that prayer is a continuous act; the life of a
true believer is a long unending prostration. The ritual prayer
is prescribed as an irreducible minimum, but constant
remembrance of the Lord, ceaseless invocation of His Holy
Name, and recitation of the revealed Word of God as it is
contained in the Quran are recommended as man’s sure
means to reach a higher level of spiritual exaltation. There is
no fixed day for rest in Islam, and even on Friday, when there
is congregational prayer that is prescribed directly in the
Quran, there are indications that after the prayer is over one is
to go out of the mosque to seek the bounty of the Lord—that
is to say, to do one’s work. So there is no such rule as a fixed
day for prayer and the rest of the week for business, when
there is to be no prayer.

Prayer in Islam affords an opportunity for serene

contemplation of the Divine Attributes for the purpose of
realizing the Divine Attributes in one’s being. Man in turn, as
a result of this contemplation, experiences his own humility,
his virtual nothingness. This helps him to transcend the
mechanical processes involved in his biological life. Muslim
prayer helps one to wake up—no wonder there is a significant

283
addition to the text of the call to morning prayer: “Prayer is
better than sleep”!

Cosmic Prayer

Islamic prayer, insofar as it consists in praising the Lord, is in

tune with nature: according to the Quran even the seven
heavens and the earth are constantly engaged in declaring the
Glory of God:

The seven heavens and the earth,

And all beings therein,

Declare His glory;

There is not a thing

But celebrates His praise;

And yet ye understand not

How they declare His glory!

Verily He is Oft-Forbearing,

Most Forgiving!

(XVII, 44)

Not only the seven heavens and the earth but also the birds in
their flight are engaged in His praise:

Hast thou not seen that Allah, He it is Whom all who are in the heavens and
the earth praise, and the birds in their flight? Of each He knoweth verily the
worship and the praise; and Allah is aware of what they do. (XXIV, 41)

284
Thus, it would appear that the prayer of the believer in Islam
is in step with what the world around him is constantly
engaged in doing. One way to be in tune with the Infinite is to
stay in a prolonged state of prayer and be receptive to the
finer forces that descend from above to uplift man to a higher
plane of existence.

Finally, and more decisively, there is a reference in the Quran

where the prophet Moses received the following revelation:

Lo! I, even I, am Allah. There is no God save Me. So serve Me and establish
worship for My remembrance.

Lo! the Hour is surely coming. But I will to keep it hidden, that every soul
may be rewarded for that which it striveth (to achieve). (XX, 14, 15)

The Quranic concept of prayer is thus linked with man’s

struggle with his nafs (lower self) and is to be likened to an
alchemical process, which transforms it into the angelic state
of being and which is a sort of witnessing of a rebirth into the
world of the Holy Spirit.

285
286
 Part Two

ASPECTS OF THE ISLAMIC TRADITION

287
288
 8

Sunnism

ABDUR-RAHMAN IBRAHIM DOI

The Meaning of Sunnism

OF ALL THE BRANCHES OF ISLAM, two are by far the

largest: the Shīʿah or the Shīʿites, partisans of ʿAlī; and the
Ahl al-Sunnah waʾl-jamāʿah, people who follow the prophetic
practices and the majority, popularly known as the Sunnis.
The Sunnis number about 80 percent of the total Muslim
population of the world. The Ahl al-Sunnah emphasize the
teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah (practices of the
Prophet of Islam along with the collective judgment of the
ṣaḥābah, or companions of the Prophet) as authoritative
sources of Islamic legislation. The Sunnis stand fast by both
the letter and the spirit of the Law emanating from these three
sources.

Sunni means literally “one who is a traditionist.” Actually,

Ahl al-Sunnah, or “the people of the Sunnah,” are so called
because they follow strictly the Ḥadīth, the traditions or
sayings of Prophet, and the Sunnah, the practices of the
Prophet. The most authentic collections of Ḥadīth are
believed by the Sunnis to be the Ṣiḥāḥ al-sittah (the Six
Authentic Works, that is, the six canonical collections of
authentic Ḥadīth): the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim, the Ṣaḥīḥ of Bukhārī,
the Sunan of Ibn Mājah, the Sunan of Abū Dāʾūd, the Sunan

289
of Nasāʾī, and the Ṣaḥīḥ of Tirmidhī. The Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imam
Mālik ibn Anas also is held in a very high esteem by the
Sunnis, although it is not one of the six canonical works.1 The
inspiration for believing in the Sunnah of the Prophet is
derived from his last sermon during the ḥajj al-wadāʿ
(farewell pilgrimage), in which the Prophet emphasized the
importance of his sayings and practices saying, “I leave for
you two things. You will not go astray if you held fast unto
them: the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger.”

Sunni Beliefs

The Sunnis believe that the words and deeds of the Prophet,
who is, according to the Quran (XXX, 21), the uswāh
ḥasanah (noble paradigm), must be followed in every walk of
life, as they were followed by his ṣaḥābah (companions),
tābiʿūn (followers of the companions), and atbāʿ al-tābiʿīn
(followers of the followers of the companions). “It is
incumbent upon you,” said the Prophet, “to follow my
Sunnah and the sunnah of the righteous caliphs (al-khulafāʾ
al-rāshidūn).”

The Sunnis are of the opinion that it was as a result of Divine

Wisdom and Providence that all the male children of the
Prophet died in his lifetime and that under Divine Inspiration
he kept the question of his succession open, leaving it to the
ummah (community of Islam) to decide the most competent
person to become the leader of the ummah. As the Quran
testifies: “The Prophet does not utter a word out of his
caprice; it is but until a revelation that has come to him” (LIII,
3–4).

290
The Sunnis adhere to principles rather than personalities.
They do not agree with the Ghadīr Khumm (Pool of Khumm)
account accepted by the Shīʿites, according to which, while
the Prophet was going on his journey from the ḥajj al-wadāʿ
(farewell pilgrimage) to Mecca on the 18th Dhuʾl-Ḥijjah in
the eleventh year of hijrah, he made the following
proclamation: “He for whom I am the mawlā (master) should
henceforth have ʿAlī as his mawlā.” Even if some of the
Sunnis consider this ḥadīth to be authentic, they interpret
mawlā to mean a “spiritual teacher” and to include all the
pious and learned men of the community who are the
successors of the Prophet. In fact, the Prophet did not confine
himself to praising ʿAlī; he had also praised Abū Bakr,
ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān at different times, paying them tributes
as glowing as any recorded in the books of Ḥadīth and Sīrah
(biography of the Prophet). Therefore, unlike Shīʿite
Muslims, Sunni Muslims do not attribute a preemptive title of
khilāfah (vicegerency or succession) to any particular
individual; they insist that the right to choose the khalīfah
(vicegerent or successor to the Prophet) belongs to the
ummah. It was on this basis that, immediately after the death
of the Prophet, the Anṣār (those who had embraced Islam in
Medina) and the Muhājirūn (those who had migrated from
Mecca to Medina) met at a place in Medina called Saqīfah
Banū Sāʿidah and, after some discussion, elected Abū Bakr as
the first khalīfah Rasūl Allāh (successor or vicegerent of the
Messenger of God).

According to the Sunni view, Abū Bakr merited this position.

It was he who was chosen by the Prophet to accompany him
on his hijrah (migration) from Mecca to Medina, and it was
he who has been mentioned in the Quran: “God did indeed
help him [the Prophet] when the unbelievers drove

291
him out; he had no more than one companion [Abū Bakr]; the
two were in the cave” (IX, 40).

The main features of the election of the khalīfah or caliph

continued for the other three “rightly guided” (rāshidūn)
caliphs, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī. They were elected
through the process of ijmāʿ (consensus of opinion) of the
aṣḥāb ḥall waʾl-ʿaqd (people who loosen and bind, that is,
those who possess knowledge of religious injunctions and
law). Once ijmāʿ was reached, people offered their bayʿah
(oath of allegiance) to their elected caliph. The caliph in turn
had to make a covenant (ʿahd) with the ummah to rule and
lead them according to the principles of the Divine Law as
laid down by the Quran and the Sunnah. The khalīfah for the
ummah was only a democratically elected spiritual and
temporal leader (imām) possessing no ʿiṣmah (inerrancy).
Thus, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, ʿUmar al-Fārūq, ʿUthmān
al-Ghaniy, and ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā were elected as the
consecutive successors of the Prophet and are called the
khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn (rightly guided caliphs).

These four caliphs ruled the Islamic state for a total period of
about thirty years, exactly in accordance with the teachings of
the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet—hence their title,
“rightly guided.”

In spite of the fact that the Sunnis follow the noble example
of the ṣaḥābah and particularly those of the four rāshidūn
caliphs, they do not attribute ʿiṣmah to them, as is done by the
Shīʿite in the case of their Imams. The Shīʿites believe that
God prevents the prophets and the Imams from sin and that
the Imams have the power of custodianship (wilāyah) over
their followers.

292
The Sunnis believe that any sincere Muslim who strives to
gain true knowledge of the Quran will be blessed by God,
even if he comes from a very humble origin. They do not
subscribe to the Shīʿite view that the true meaning of the
Quran was available only to the Ahl al-bayt (members of the
family of the Prophet) who were near and dear to him like
ʿAlī and ʿAlī’s eleven male lineal descendants, who are the
Shīʿte Imams. The Sunnis, however, show great respect for
the Ahl al-bayt and pray for them while uttering their names.
All the ṣaḥābah are considered to be just (ʿādil) by Sunni
Muslims and by those who emphasize the truth of what has
been reported in a prophetic ḥadīth: “My ṣaḥābah are like
guiding stars; if you follow them, you follow the path of
guidance.” The role of some of the ṣaḥābah in the battles of
Jamal and Ṣiffīh and some other lapses committed by them
are considered to be mere errors of ijtihād, despite the best of
intentions.

Sunni Caliphates and Sultanates

The next period of the Sunni caliphate after the rāshidūn

caliphs was that of the Umayyad Dynasty, which ruled in
Damascus, Syria. During this
period, the religion of Islam was adopted by many of the
conquered peoples, and a mode of coexistence was worked
out with several other religious communities not converted to
Islam. In the year 92/711, Umayyad forces crossed the Straits
of Gibraltar into Spain (Al-Andalus), where Sunnism
remained the dominating form of Islam. Much of Spain
remained in Muslim hands until the Christian Reconquista in
the eighth/fourteenth century. During the six centuries of
Islamic rule in Spain, Sunni learning and piety characterized
the life of the Islamic community, and culture in general

293
flourished under the Spanish Muslims usually known as
Moors. Spain served in fact as an important point of contact
between Christianity and Islam, and some of the most
important spiritual movements of Islam were associated with
Andalusia.

In the year 132/750, the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus fell,

to be replaced by another Sunni Arab dynasty, the Abbasids
in the East; Umayyad rule in Spain was to survive for more
than another two centuries. The Abbasid caliphs established
their capital in Baghdad along the banks of the Tigris River in
Mesopotamia. It was during the Abbasid caliphate that there
emerged the four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the
Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, and Ḥanbalī schools, founded
respectively by Imam Abū Ḥanīfah (d. 150/767), Imam Mālik
ibn Anas (d. 179/795), Imam al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820) and
Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855).

The Ṣiḥāḥ al-sittah, the six most authentic collections of

Ḥadīth of the Prophet, were also assembled during the
Abbasid age. Instructions in traditional Islamic religious
disciplines such as Islamic Law, Quranic studies, and studies
of the prophetic traditions had previously gone on mainly in
the schools maintained as parts of the mosques. It was during
this period that the enlightened patrons of these disciplines
established separate academies known as madrasahs.

With the invasion of the main Islamic lands by Mongols or

Tartars, who had originated in eastern Siberia and had
captured and sacked Baghdad in 656/1258, the Abbasid
caliphate was destroyed. But, ironically, in just a few decades
the Mongols who had conquered the Muslim lands were
themselves conquered by Islam and became Muslims. Some

294
embraced Shīʿism but many became Sunnis and supported
Sunni schools of Law.

The Mamlūks, originally Turkish slaves, who were strict

Sunni Muslims, ruled Egypt and Syria between 648/1250 and
922/1517. Great literary achievements in historical writing
were made during the Mamlūk period. One scholar of the
period, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (849/1445–911/1505), wrote
historical works on Islam and produced scholarly studies of
the Quran from the Sunni perspective. These works became
famous throughout the Muslim world.

23. Suleymaniye Cami, Istanbul.

The Mamlūks were succeeded by the Ottoman Turks, who in

816/1413 established, on the basis of their earlier sultanate, a
Sunni Islamic empire that lasted until 1342/1924. Basing

295
themselves mainly in Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Turks
controlled Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and vast territory in
Europe as far as Austria, and everywhere they spread the
teachings of Sunnism.

The Sunni Mughals established their empire in India and

ruled it between 933/1526 and 1274/1857. The Mughal rulers
made Delhi their capital and built impressive royal palaces,
mosques, and mausoleums, the best known of which is the
Taj Mahal in Agra. However, the remarkable growth of Islam
in India was due not so much to the efforts of the Sunni rulers
as to the Sufis, whose piety influenced the Indian masses and
brought a large number of people into the fold of Islam. From
India, Muslim missionaries went to Malaysia and Indonesia,
where Islam was accepted by the entire local population.
Today, nearly all Muslims throughout Southeast Asia belong
to the Sunni branch of Islam.

Sunni Islam has also seen a vital growth in Africa, south of

the Sahara, where Islam had not penetrated in its initial spread
across North Africa to Spain. The majority of the population
of many West African and East African countries is Sunni
Muslim.

Sunni Schools of Law

The four schools of Sunni Law derive their guidance from the
Quran and the Sunnah as the primary sources, and ijmāʿ
(consensus of opinion) and qiyās (analogical deduction) as the
secondary sources. Qiyās, which plays an important role in
the Ḥanafī school, the largest of the four Sunni schools, is
used to provide answers to new problems by drawing analogy
between the accepted interpretations of the two primary

296
sources in relation to the problems already solved by them
and the reasons underlying the new problem at hand.

These sources represent God’s Will for regulating the conduct

of the community of Islam and are also known as the
Sharīʿah. The Sharīʿah signifies a composite source of
teachings and practices based upon the interrelation between
divine and human activity. It is considered a duty of every
Sunni Muslim to spend his life according to the dictates of the
Sharīʿah as interpreted by the ʿulamāʾ (learned men) and the
fuqahāʾ (jurists).

All Sunni schools provide for their adherents clear guidelines

drawn from the light of the Quran and the Sunnah for all
walks of life and every sphere of activity. For example, rules
have been laid down for performing prayers,
for formulating contracts of sale and purchase, for conduct of
war, for dealing with non-Muslims, for marriage, divorce,
inheritance, etc.

Certain minor differences of opinion and interpretation exist

among the four Sunni schools, but a Sunni Muslim may
conform his practice of Islam to any one of them. Usually a
person born in one school conforms to the practice of that
same school. This is called taqlīd, or imitation. But there are
at present a number of Sunni Muslims who belong to the
Salafiyyah movement, which claims that it is sufficient to
follow the Quran and the Sunnah and that there is no need to
follow any of the four Imams. The puritanical movement of
Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, popularly known as
the Wahhabī movement, rejects the taqlīd of any of the four
Imams and their schools of thought. Another group, named
Ahl al-ḥadīth, which is found in India and Pakistan, also

297
follows the Quran and Ḥadīth and not the four Sunni schools
of Islamic jurisprudence. It feels that the Quran and the
Sunnah are sufficient to guide it upon the right path.

Sunni Beliefs and Practices

Like other Muslims, Sunnis offer five daily prayers, give

zakāt (religious tax), fast in the month of Ramaḍān, and
perform the ḥajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, if they are able to
do so.

Sunnis attach great importance to the ṣalāt al-jumʿah (Friday

prayer), which is offered in congregation at ẓuhr time (after
midday) on Fridays. The ṣalāt al-jumʿah is wājib (necessary)
and must be performed by all male adults except those who
are travelers or who have some handicaps which apply to
other farḍ (obligatory) prayers. Women are not bound to offer
this prayer in congregation, but they may join it if it does not
upset their household duties.

Like other Muslims, Sunnis also believe in the seven articles

of faith (īmān): belief in the Oneness of God, the angels, the
Sacred Scriptures, the messengers of God, the Last Day,
destiny coming from God—whether good or bad, and
resurrection after death. Sunnis believe that God has created
the universe and that He is its absolute Controller and
Regulator; that everything in the universe has a predetermined
set course (al-qadar) and nothing can happen without God’s
willing it and knowing it; that God knows the present, the
past, and the future of every creature and that the destiny of
every creature is already known to Him (XXV, 2–XXXIII,
38); that God has given free will to every human being by the
exercise of which he can choose between right and wrong;

298
and that God will judge every human being on the Day of
Judgment on the basis of his actions in this world. The Sunnis
also believe that on the Day of Judgment no one except
the Prophet, with God’s permission, will be able to intercede
(shafāʿah) on behalf of anyone else. In other words, no Imam,
no khalīfah, no walī Allāh (saint) will have any power of
intercession.

After the assassination of the caliph ʿUthmān and the

unsatisfactory arbitration between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyah in
relation to their claims to the caliphate, there emerged three
schools: the Khārijites, the Murjiʾites, and the Shīʿites. Every
school developed a different notion of its collective identity
and began to view the boundaries of right belief differently.

The Khārijites

The Khārijites believed that faith was demonstrated in

righteous acts and that without making faith explicit in public
behavior, one could not claim to be a Muslim. They also
thought that sinful acts committed by any Muslim, including
the khalīfah, breached one’s confession of faith and one’s
claim to be a Muslim. They based their conclusion on certain
pronouncements in the Quran in which infidelity is related to
some major acts of moral transgression through the use of
such phrases as “there is no faith in him,” “he does not belong
to us,” and “he has no place in Islam” to censure the conduct
of the person who is guilty of such acts or to indicate the
punishment of hell which is promised to him. The Khārijites
argued that the caliph ʿUthmān had acted contrary to the
mandate of the Sharīʿah: therefore, he and all those who
committed grave sins should be expelled from the Islamic
ummah. Initially they supported ʿAlī in his struggle for the

299
caliphate against Muʿāwiyah, but when ʿAlī lost in the
arbitration between him and Muʿāawiyah on the matter of the
caliphate, the Khārijites withdrew from his forces to form a
separate sect.

The Murjiʾites

In contrast to the Khārijites, the Murjiʾites believed that mere

affirmation of faith by professing the shahādah was enough
to ensure salvation for a person in the next life. In other
words, even if a Muslim commits a number of sins in his life,
he will still not go to hell; but his place in the hereafter will be
somewhat inferior to that of a more virtuous Muslim. The
Murjiʾites held that outward acts of faith and sin could not be
judged except insofar as they affected the common good.
They believed that commission of sin did not imply that the
sinner should be expelled from the community. Consequently,
they thought that the decision regarding the caliph ʿUthmān’s
or any Muslim’s status as a believer or sinner must be left to
God. In other words, it must be postponed until the Day of
Judgment.

The Murjiʾites took their stand on the dictum in the Quran

that bestows the glad tidings of heaven to everyone who
possesses only the qualification of faith. With this moderate
attitude, the Murjiʾites found themselves largely in support of
Muʿāwiyah and other Umayyad caliphs, although not without
criticizing their alleged lack of piety.

The Khārijites were prone to thinking that the graver sins

were fatal to faith and that committing them turned a Muslim
into a kāfir (disbeliever). The Murjiʾites, on the contrary,

300
thought that to sin even in the extreme was not a matter of
such importance as to destroy faith.

The Sunnis had all along emphasized the view held by the
ṣaḥābah on this subject—the view that the commission of a
major sin was neither the equivalent of kufr (disbelief), as the
Khārijites thought, nor an insignificant matter, as the
Murjiʾites felt. In Sunni opinion, perpetration of a sin
deserves divine reprobation and chastisement, and yet it is not
unpardonable if God so wishes.

The Muʿtazilites

In the second/eighth century, Sunni Islam saw the emergence

of a group called the Muʿtazilites. It was responsible for
whetting the appetite of Muslims for speculative
investigations. It adopted logic, philosophy, and rationalism
to sharpen the tools of dialectical theology to defend Islam
against Christianity, Manichaeism, and other forms of alien
religious thought. The Muʿtazilites went into excesses in their
beliefs, particularly in respect of tawḥīd (Oneness of God)
and the creation of the Quran (khalq al-Qurʾān).

The beatific vision (seeing God in the hereafter) was another

matter of controversy among them and other early Islamic
schools of thought. The Quran says: “Some faces that Day
will beam (in brightness and beauty) looking towards their
Lord” (LXXV, 22–23). This verse implies that on the Last
Day the faces of the loyal servants of God will be radiant with
joy by looking at His Countenance. The same truth is
emphasized by the Ḥadīth, many of which assert that one of
the boundless blessings that the faithful (muʾminūn) will
receive in the hereafter is that they will see God Most High

301
and that this will be the source of the greatest bliss and
happiness for them. But the Muʿtazilites denied the possibility
of beatific vision on the ground that it was not logically
possible because only a thing that exists in material form or
has color or surface can be seen by the human eye. They
argued that since God has neither form nor substance nor is
He contained in space and time, the question of seeing Him
does not arise. The possibility of seeing God was rejected by
the Muʿtazilites on rationalistic grounds,
even though such a rejection meant refuting the relevant verse
of the Quran.

Although the Muʿtazilites were Sunnis, such views were not

accepted by the majority of Sunnis, who believed that since
the Prophet has asserted authoritatively the possibility of the
beatific vision in his sayings, and that the ṣaḥābah too had
drawn no other inference from these aḥādīth except that in the
hereafter the faithful (muʾminūn) will be blessed with an
unconcealed view of God, every Muslim must believe in the
possibility of such vision.

Free Will and Determinism

Free will (qadar) and predestination (jabr) have constituted

other areas of controversy among Sunnis. The Qadariyyah
school regarded everything that comes to pass in this world
including men’s actions as entirely independent of fate. The
Jabriyyah school, on the contrary, regarded every such event
and action as having been determined by fate. Fatalists as
they were, the Jabriyyah provided no possibility for man to
act as a free being but rather turned him practically into an
inanimate object.

302
The majority of Sunnis, however, take a middle-of-the-road
course in this question. They believe that all happenings and
all human actions are the results of both divine and human
wills acting in a delicate balance. They insist that the general
run of Muslims should place their full faith in the ṣaḥābah
(companions) and follow implicitly the path marked out by
them in this as in other matters, because in the appreciation
and understanding of religion and its principles it is not
possible to excel the ṣaḥābah.

The Significance of al-Ghazzālī

In the fourth/eleventh century, the world of Islam saw the

emergence of three trends in the intellectual sphere: the Sunni
theologians believed that the study of theology was causing
more harm to common people than good; others felt that
religious knowledge was incompatible with secular
knowledge; and ordinary Muslims regarded the study of
science as irrelevant to their spiritual life. A genius was
needed to bring about an intellectual synthesis of these
mutually repellent trends. The world of Islam found such a
genius in the person of Imam Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (450/
1058–505/1111), who was one of the greatest Sunni scholars.
After carefully considering the works of Muslim philosophers
such as Abū ʿAlī Sīnā (Avicenna) and al-Kindī as well as the
works of Greek philosophers translated into Arabic, he came
to the conclusion that they were not explaining, but were
rather explaining away, Islamic beliefs. In criticizing them,
al-Ghazzālī restricted the limits of human reason in
apprehending Divine Truth. He
strongly believed that Sufism alone could revive the religion
through its emphasis upon spirituality.

303
Sunni Spirituality

Sunni spirituality aims at determining the limits of genuine

spiritual experience in accordance with the perfect model
(uswāh ḥasanah) of the Prophet as manifested in his Ḥadīth
and Sunnah. The Sunnis judge the spiritual merits of the
actions (aʿmāl) of Muslims on the basis of values and norms
established by the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. The
most important of such values and norms is taqwā.

The Arabic word taqwā denotes a quality that is absolutely

essential in the personality of every conscientious Muslim and
comprises both the love and the fear of God. It can at best be
loosely rendered in English as “God-consciousness”
combined with reverential fear and purity. More exactly,
taqwā refers to a constant awareness of a person that he
stands always before God and that God knows everything
concerning him, even his most secret thoughts deep down
within the recesses of his heart. This awareness produces in a
person an intense love for God combined with reverence, so
that he wants to do only what is pleasing to God and tries to
avoid what is displeasing to God. It creates such a keen
consciousness of God in a person that he never for a single
moment imagines that God is unaware of what he does or that
he will not be held accountable for all his actions.

The lives of all notable ṣaḥābah were immersed in taqwā as

defined in the ḥadīth narrated by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb: “You
should serve God in such a way that if you do not see Him,
He sees you.” It is this firm īmān (faith) that brings about and
increases love for God (ḥubb Allāh), love for Muslim
brotherhood (al-ukhuwwat al-islāmiyyah), and love for all of
mankind, which in turn generates efficient moral power

304
leading to peace between man and his Creator as well as
between man and man.

Taqwā is used in a general sense to indicate a religious

attitude of devotional feeling resulting from the fear of God.
The faith of a muʾmin (believer) lies between khawf (fear of
God) and rajāʾ (hope in God). However, taqwā does not
require a Muslim to practice austerity like a Christian monk.
He has to curb his carnal desires, but not in any inhuman way.
A Muslim with taqwā is expected to take up responsibilities
in life, like contracting marriage and raising a family, with all
that such responsibilities involve. Since Islam does not
subscribe to the idea that intellectual knowledge
(illumination), however correctly imparted, would rightly lead
the human will by itself, it insists that a Muslim should strive
to increase
his taqwā or strengthen his īmān, by acquiring knowledge of
the Quran and the Sunnah, by performing devotional acts
(ʿibādah) and by placing his reliance upon God alone
(tawakkul).

The Quran indicates the qualities of men who possess taqwā

in these words:

Verily, the Believers are those whose hearts feel fear when God is mentioned,
and when His signs (or revelations) are recited to them they increase their
faith, and who put their trust in their Lord. (VIII, 2)

Verily, those who live in awe and fear of their Lord, who believe in their
Lord’s signs (or revelations), who do not ascribe partners to their Lord, who
give what they give in charity with their hearts full of fear because they are to
return to their Lord: It is these who hasten in all good acts and they are
foremost in them. (XXIII, 57–61)

305
The caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb described graphically how a
believer’s īmān lies between fear of God and hope in Him. He
said: “If God declared on the Day of Judgment that all people
would go to paradise except one unfortunate person, out of
His fear I would think that I am that person. And if God
declared that all people would go to hell except one fortunate
person, out of my hope in His Mercy I would think that I am
that fortunate person.”

Sufism in the Sunni World

Many Sunni Muslims happen to be the members of Sufi

orders. Their notion of piety is to live in accordance with the
dictates of the Sufi fraternity (ṭarīqah) to which they belong.
The early Sufis were Sunni Muslims from Persia like Abū
Yazīd of Basṭām (d. 261/874). The main Sufi fraternities that
have sprung up throughout the world, such as the Qādiriyyah,
the Shādhiliyyah, the ʿAlawiyyah, the Tijāniyyah, the
Chishtiyyah, the Naqshbandiyyah, etc., are of Sunni
background. Numerous Sunni Muslims in the Indian
subcontinent comprising India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, in
Southeast Asian countries, in North Africa, East Africa, and
West Africa south of the Sahara happen to be murīds
(spiritual disciples) under the spiritual guidance and
surveillance of the shaykhs (spiritual masters) of the
respective Sufi fraternities to which they belong. As a result,
many shrines of the saints (awliyāʾ Allāh) throughout these
countries are frequented by the devotees hoping to receive
barakah (Divine Blessing), which is associated with the saints
both when they are alive and when they are dead.
Unfortunately, a number of Sufi disciples have at times
shown disregard for the standard forms of expressing true
faith through the performance of ṣalāt

306
(prayer), ṣawm (fasting), or ḥajj (pilgrimage) and have
thereby earned for themselves the wrath and hatred of the
orthodox Sunni community, but the vast majority are
orthodox Sunnis. Moreover, most of the Sufi shaykhs have
been and remain authorities in the study of the Sharīʿah. For
example, Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī of India popularly known
as Mujaddid al-alf al-thānī preached fervently that “ṭarīqah is
Sharīʿah and Sharīʿah is ṭarīqah” Sufi spirituality is, in fact,
inseparable from that of Sunnism and constitutes its heart,
from which it flows to the body and limbs of the Islamic
community as a whole.

Note

1. Some of these collections have now been made available in

European languages, such as the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and
Mishkāt al-maṣābīh. See Mishkāt al-maṣābīh, trans. J.
Robson (4 vols.; Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1963–65); Kitāb jāmiʿ
al-ṣaḥīḥ, trans. M. M. Khan (6 vols.; Lahore: M. Ashraf,
1978–80).

307
308
 9

Twelve-Imam Shīʿism

SYED HUSAIN M. JAFRI

TWELVE-IMAM SHĪʿISM IS THE NAME of the second

largest denomination of Muslims. They derive their religious
code and spiritual inspiration, after the Prophet, from the
twelve Imams who were among the descendants of the
Prophet. The members of the denomination consider the
Imams to be the only authoritative interpreters of the Quran
and the Sunnah. Within the matrix of Islam and the totality of
the Muslim Community, the term Shīʿah (party or
followers—hence, the followers of the house of the Prophet)
distinguishes them from the Sunni majority. The qualifying
adjective twelve (in Arabic ithnā ʿashar, “twelve,”—hence,
ithnā ʿashariyyah, “Twelver”) differentiates them from the
other smaller branches of Shīʿism such as the Zaydīs and the
Ismāʿīlīs, who, although they believe that religious guidance
is to be drawn only from the family of the Prophet, differ
from the Twelvers concerning the number and the various
members of his descendants whom they accept as the
legitimate Imams.

The twelve Imams recognized in Twelver Shīʿism are as

follows:

1. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661)

309
2. Al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (d. 49/669)

3. Al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī (d. 61/680)

4. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (d. 95/714)

5. Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 115/733)

6. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765)

7. Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799)

8. ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818)

9. Muḥammad Jawād al-Taqī (d. 220/835)

10. ʿAlī al-Naqī (d. 254/868)

11. Al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/874)

12. Muḥammad al-Mahdī, al-Qāʾim al-Ḥujjah

(entered major occultation in 329/940).

Since the Prophet’s sons died in infancy, these Imams sprang

from his daughter Fāṭimah, whose husband ʿAlī ibn Abī
Ṭālib, the cousin and ward of the Prophet, is the first Imam.
Al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, the sons of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah, whom
the Prophet brought up with ardent love and affection, are
held as the second and third Imams respectively. After
al-Ḥusayn, according to the Twelver Shīʿites, the Imamate
remained in his descendants until it came to the twelfth Imam,
Muḥammad al-Mahdī who, by the command of God, went

310
into occultation to continue guiding the believers until the
Day of Resurrection.

The Family of the Prophet and Divine Guidance

The belief that religious guidance must come from the

descendants of the Prophet is taken in Shīʿism from the
Quranic concept of the exalted and virtuous families of the
prophets. In all ages, the prophets have been particularly
concerned with ensuring that the special favor of God
bestowed upon them for the guidance of man be maintained
in their families and pass to their descendants. The Quran
frequently speaks of the prophets praying to God for their
progeny and asking Him to continue His guidance in their
lineages. In answer to these prayers, the verses of the Quran
bear testimony to the special favor of God granted to the
direct descendants of the prophets, not only to become true
examples of their fathers’ righteousness but also to inherit
their spiritual qualities and to continue their missions
uninterrupted. The total number of such verses that mention
special favor requested for and granted to the families of
various prophets by God runs over one hundred in the Quran.
A few of these verses, especially those relating to Abraham,
the patriarch of the prophets, are quoted here to illustrate the
point. Abraham’s concern for his family is described, for
example, when he is told by God: “Behold, I make you a
leader [Imam] of the people.” Whereupon Abraham pleads:
“And of my seed [dhurriyyatī, meaning offspring]?” God
replied: “My covenant shall not reach the evildoers” (II, 124),
meaning that they will be virtuous people to continue the
work of guidance. In a similar verse Abraham prays to God:

311
Our Lord, I have made some of my “seed” to dwell in the valley where is no
sown land by Thy Holy House; Our Lord, let them perform the Prayer, and
make hearts of men yearn towards them, and provide them fruits; haply they
will be thankful. (XIV, 37)

And the prayer was favorably answered when God declares:

These are they whom God has blessed among the Prophets of the Seed of
Adam, and of those We bore with Noah, and of the Seed of Abraham and
Israel, And of those We guided and chose. (XIX, 58)

This special favor of God for the descendants of Abraham

found even more emphatic expression in another verse when
God says:

Or, are they jealous of the people for the bounty that God has given them?
Yet We gave the people of Abraham [Āl Ibrāhīm] the Book and the Wisdom,
and We gave them a mighty kingdom. (IV, 54)

And again:

God chose Adam and Noah and the House of Abraham, and the House of
Imran above all beings. (III, 33).

Commentators of the Quran have maintained unanimously

that Muḥammad belonged to the “family of Abraham”
referred to in these verses. Abraham was not only recognized
by the Arabs as their progenitor but was also acknowledged
by them as the founder of the Kaʿbah to which four
generations of Muḥammad’s predecessors were so closely
associated as custodians and were therefore the leaders of
Mecca with priestly prerogatives.

It was in this family background that Muḥammad arose as the

Last Prophet of God and the restorer of the true religion of
Abraham and Ishmael, and so in him the sanctity of the house

312
of Abraham, frequently referred to in the Quran, reached its
highest perfection. It was this Quranic interpretation of the
exalted position of the families of the prophets that made
some of the Muslims believe that his successor could be only
a man from his own family and endowed with the same
personal qualities.

The history of Shīʿism or Shīʿite “sentiments” in Islam, taking

into account this Quranic concept of religious leadership, can
easily be found as early as the Medinan period of the
prophetic mission of Muḥammad, when some of his
companions started looking to his cousin and son-in-law, ʿAlī
ibn Abī Ṭālib, as the nearest of kin and the closest disciple of
the Prophet to lead the community after him. But it was soon
after the death of the Prophet that this special regard for ʿAlī
found an unequivocal expression when he was denied the
leadership of the community, perhaps because of some
political considerations. The question of succession to the
Prophet became thus involved with the vision of the
leadership of the Muslim community, with different
approaches to and varying degrees of emphasis upon its
political and religious aspects. To some it was more political
than religious; to others it was more religious than political.
Since Islam encompasses
all aspects of human life and destiny, this-worldly and
otherworldly, the Prophet, along with his primary function as
the Last Messenger of God sent by God to deliver His
message to mankind, had also assumed the role of the
temporal ruler and statesman when the newly born
community in Medina needed his guidance in mundane
affairs. It is in this sense that Islam, from its very birth,
appeared in history to have been both a religious discipline
and, so to speak, a sociopolitical movement.

313
24. Dome of Masjid-i-Shaykh Lutfallah, Isfahan.

The Prophet thus left behind a religious heritage and also a

political legacy. When he died, the majority of his
companions thought that the function of his successor was

314
only to protect and preserve the community from
disintegration, to safeguard its religiopolitical character, and
to propagate the message of Islam beyond Arabia, but not to
continue the divine and spiritual guidance that had come to an
end with the death of the Prophet. To some others, however
small in number, although the prophethood ended with
Muḥammad and no one could be equal to him in status, yet
the Divine Guidance had to continue through his successors,
who should combine in themselves, like the Prophet, both the
functions of Divine Guidance and leadership in mundane
affairs. They should share the filial piety of the house of
Abraham and the lineal sanctity of the “house of Hāshim,” the
head of the clan of Muḥammad and the chief custodian of the
Kaʿbah. To them, thus, the question of succession to the
Prophet was, first and foremost, of a great religious and
spiritual significance; it was a question of continued Divine
Guidance through the divinely inspired and appointed Imams
hailing from the family of the Prophet, who could
authoritatively interpret the Divine Revelation and the
prophetic Sunnah.

Fundamental Beliefs

The basic principles of religion (uṣūl al-dīn), in Shīʿism as

well as in the rest of Islam are (1) Unity of God (tawḥīd), (2)
prophecy (nubuwwah), which ended with Muḥammad as the
last of the prophets and the Quran as the last message of God
to mankind, and (3) resurrection (maʿād) or the life hereafter.
These three fundamental beliefs are common to Shīʿism and
Sunnism and serve as the matrix of Islamic fraternity. The
Shīʿah, however, add two more principles, considering them
necessary for a comprehensive perspective of religious
consciousness. These are (4) the Justice of God (ʿadl) and (5)

315
the Imamate. As for the Justice of God, it is considered by the
Shīʿah as an intrinsic quality of the Divinity rather than an
extrinsic one, since the Shīʿite perspective is based more on
intelligence than on will. In early Islam, however, it was not
exclusively a Shīʿite doctrine, since it was also held by the
Muʿtazilites, who belonged to Sunni Islam. Although the
Muʿtazilite school of thought died out in due course, this
belief survived among the Shīʿah. What, however, separates
Shīʿism from Sunnism is the cardinal belief of the Shīʿah in
the Imamate of the descendants of the Prophet. According to
the Shīʿah doctrine, the two aspects of the Imamate—its being
restricted to the family of the Prophet, on the basis of what
has been explained above, and its divine character—are not
merely juxtaposed to one another but interpenetrate.

Doctrine of the Imamate

The word imām literally means “leader” or “guide,” and in its

specifically Shīʿite meaning it signifies him who is ordained
by God to continue Divine Guidance after prophecy has come
to an end. This is also called wilāyah, which has almost the
same meaning as the Imamate, but wilāyah emphasizes more
particularly that special quality of the Imam with which he is
endowed by God to interpret the inner or esoteric meaning of
Revelation. Wilāyah literally means to be friend or to be
nearer to some one; hence, the walī, in Shīʿite terminology, is
he who is nearest to God in love and devotion and therefore is
entrusted by Him with the esoteric knowledge of religion. The
Imams are thus the awliyāʾ Allāh par excellence.

The Imamate is based on two principles: naṣṣ and ʿilm. Naṣṣ

means that the Imamate is a prerogative bestowed by God
upon a chosen person from the family of the Prophet, who,

316
before his death and with the guidance of God, transfers it to
another by an explicit designation, naṣṣ. In order to continue
the Divine Guidance necessary for mankind, the first naṣṣ
was initiated by the Prophet himself who, before his death
and under the Divine Command, designated ʿAlī ibn Abī
Ṭālib as his successor. On the authority of naṣṣ, therefore, the
Imamate is restricted, through all political circumstances, to a
definite individual from among the descendants of ʿAlī and
Fāṭimah, whether he claims temporal rule for himself or not.

The second principle embodied in the doctrine of the Imamate

is that of ʿilm. This means that an Imam is a divinely inspired
possessor of a special sum of knowledge of religion not
possessed by anyone else, which can only be passed on before
his death to the following Imam. In this way the Imam of the
time becomes the exclusive, authoritative source of
knowledge in religious matters, and without his guidance no
one can keep to the right path. This special knowledge
includes both the exoteric (ẓāhir) and the esoteric (bāṭin)
meanings of the Quran. This esoteric knowledge of religion is
wilāyah, which God entrusted to the Prophet, who, in turn,
handed it over to ʿAlī; thus it became the inheritance of the
Imams who followed him
until it reached the twelfth Imam, Muḥammad al-Mahdī.

The doctrine of the Imamate in Twelver Shīʿism thus rotates

around these two principles, naṣṣ and ʿilm, which are not
merely conjoined or added to each other, but are so
thoroughly fused into a unitary vision of religious leadership
that it is impossible to separate the one from the other. Hence,
naṣṣ in fact means transmission of that special knowledge of
religion which had been exclusively and legitimately
restricted to the divinely favored Imams of the house of the

317
Prophet through ʿAlī and can only be transferred from one
Imam to his successor as the legacy of the sacred family.

Function of the Imamate

The Imam has three functions: (1) to explain what has been
revealed through the Quran and has been taught by the
Prophet and to interpret the Divine Law, the Sharīʿah; (2) to
be a spiritual guide to lead men to an understanding of inner
meanings of things; and, because of these two qualities, (3) to
rule over the Muslim community if the circumstances of the
time allow him to do so.

According to Shīʿism, the Imamate is a covenant between

God and mankind, and recognition of the Imam is the
absolute duty of every believer. The Imams are the proof
(ḥujjah) of God on earth; their words are the words of God
and their commands are the commands of God, because in all
their decisions they are inspired by God and they are in
absolute authority. Obedience to them, therefore, is obedience
to God, and disobedience to them is disobedience to God.
They are possessed of the power of miracles and of irrefutable
arguments (dalāʾil): “They may be likened, in this
community, to the Ark of Noah: he who boards it obtains
salvation and reaches the gate of repentance. . . . God
delegated to the Imams spiritual rulership over the whole
world, which must always have such a leader and guide.”1

The Imam of the time is, according to the Shīʿite belief, the
witness for the people, the gate to God (bāb Allāh), and the
road (sabīl) and the guide (dalīl) to Him. He is the repository
of God’s Knowledge, the interpreter of His Revelations, and
the pillar of His Unity. It is because of these functions of the

318
Imam that he must be inerrant (maʿṣūm) and immune from sin
and error. Inerrancy of the Imam guarantees the infallibility of
his decisions in matters of law and religion and also preserves
the purity and sanctity of the person responsible for such a
task.

The function of the Imam can be better understood by

comparing it with the caliph in Sunnism. The caliph is a
servant of Law, the Imam is its
authoritative interpreter and master. The caliph is elected by
the people, the Imam is appointed by the previous Imam; that
is, appointment of the caliph depends upon the wishes of the
people, whereas that of the Imams is an “act of God,” an
ordinance promulgated by the previous Imam. The caliph can
be removed for sinful acts; the Imam is sinless and infallible.
Finally, there may or may not be a caliph in the world, but the
Shīʿite Imam must always be in the world, whether present or
hidden, as the Mahdī is now. The hidden Imam is for the
Shīʿites the continuation of the personality and barakah of the
Prophet and the means whereby the Quran is preserved. It is
because of these functions of the Imam that he cannot
possibly be elected by the people. A spiritual guide can only
receive his authority from God.

The third function of the Imam, that of ruling over the

community, is a logical corollary of the first two. An Imam is
the best leader the people can have in their mundane affairs as
well as in their spiritual affairs. If, however, historical
circumstances do not allow the Imam of the time to exercise
his temporal authority, according to Twelver Shīʿism, it is not
at all incumbent upon him to rise in rebellion and to try to
become a ruler. His place is above that of a ruler. Those in

319
possession of temporal power should carry out what the
Imam, as a supreme authority of religion, decides.

Obligatory Religious Duties

There are seven religious duties that have to be observed as

obligatory acts of worship of God. These are (1) praying five
times a day; (2) fasting during the whole month of Ramaḍān;
(3) making the pilgrimage (ḥajj) to the Kaʿbah once in a
lifetime if one is financially and physically able to do so; (4)
giving alms (zakāt) amounting to one-tenth of certain
commodities, to be paid at the end of the year for the general
good of the community and the poor; (5) khums or one-fifth
of one’s yearly income to be paid as the prerogative of the
Imam of the time; (6) jihād, commonly but not accurately
translated as holy war; and (7) al-amr biʾl-maʿrūf waʾl-nahy
ʿan al-munkar, exhorting others to do that which is good and
forbidding them from doing what is evil.

Five of these obligatory religious rites, prayer, fasting, ḥajj,

zakāt, and jihād, are common to Shīʿism and Sunnism with
only minor variations in the performance of the first four, but
there is some difference in the interpretation of the obligation
of jihād. According to the Shīʿah when the Imam is not
present and there is no special substitute for him, holy war
cannot be launched. However, if an enemy attacks, placing an
Islamic country or community in danger, it is everyone’s duty
to fight in defense of his country and its people.

Khums and “preaching good and forbidding evil” are

particularly Shīʿite religious obligations. In addition to zakāt,
the Shīʿah also pay khums—one-fifth of one’s yearly income
or any other profit earned—as the share of the Imam of the

320
time. During the lifetime of the Prophet, it was paid to him,
and since his death the Shīʿah have considered it incumbent
upon themselves to pay it to the Imam and to the Prophet’s
descendants. Half of this religious tax as the share of the
Imam goes now to the recognized religious authority, who, as
deputy of the Imam in his absence and on his behalf, uses it in
whatever way he thinks expedient. The other half is paid to
the posterity of the Prophet, especially those in need, in order
to protect their honor from the humiliation of financial
hardship and also as an expression of love and regard for
them. As for the duty of “preaching the good and forbidding
the bad,” it has been adopted by the Shīʿites as an obligation
that keeps religious fervor active and effective. This was not
an exclusively Shīʿite practice in the beginning but was also
common to the Muʿtazilites. However, it is now only the
Shīʿites who consider it an obligatory duty, together with
others such as prayer and fasting.

Other Religious Observances

In addition to the obligatory duties mentioned above, there are

two other religious practices observed by the Twelver Shīʿites
with great dedication and zeal. These are the commemoration
of the martyrdom of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and the pilgrimage to
the tombs of the Imams. Each of these observances is, in fact,
a natural corollary and a practical expression of their belief in
the Imams and love for the family of the Prophet. These
observances, although not Sharīʿah obligations, are observed
with utmost devotion and fervor, and they aid in
understanding Shīʿite religious and spiritual ideals as well as
Islamic concepts of love, justice, human values, and
compassion for the oppressed and hatred for oppression and
injustice.

321
Commemoration of the Martyrdom of Ḥusayn

Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the most beloved grandson of the Prophet,

the son of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah, and the third Imam of the
Twelver Shīʿites, along with seventy-two of his relatives and
companions, was brutally massacred at the plain of Karbalāʾ
in Iraq on the 10th of Muḥarram 61/680 by the forces of
Yazīd, the second Umayyad caliph of Islam. Yazīd inherited
the office of the caliphate from his father Muʿāwiyah, who
had appropriated it for himself through the use of force and
deceit, and he represented tyranny, injustice, and
oppression—all in the name of Islam. An embodiment of
all sorts of vices and despotic rule, Yazīd wanted Ḥusayn to
pay him homage as the lawful caliph of Islam and to submit
himself to his authority. The grandson of the Prophet refused
to do so and, in order to save Islam and its value of the
freedom and dignity of man, made one of the greatest
sacrifices of human history. Eighteen male members of his
family, including a six-month-old son, and forty-four of his
companions were killed in front of him, and then he himself
laid down his life at the altar of Truth and for the sake of
humanity. Ḥusayn’s body, already torn by numerous wounds,
was trampled under the hoofs of the horses; his tents were
burned and looted; and the helpless women and children were
shamelessly paraded through the streets of Iraq and Syria and
were treated to humiliation at the crowded courts of Ibn Ziyād
in Kufa and Yazīd in Damascus as captives. This was the fate
of the immediate family of the Prophet a mere fifty years after
his death.

322
25. Nada ‘alliyyan, a common prayer used especially by
Shi‘ites at the time of calamity and danger.

The martyrdom of Ḥusayn was of great religious and moral

significance for the followers of the house of the Prophet and
soon proved to be the most effective agent in the propagation
and rapid spread of Shīʿite feelings. It ultimately played an
immensely important role in the consolidation of Shīʿite
identity in Islam. The tragic fate of the grandson of the
Prophet henceforth added to Shīʿism an element of passion,
which renders human psychology more receptive than do
merely doctrinal arguments. The death of Ḥusayn thus set the
seal of an official Shīʿism, and his name and memory became
an inseparable part of its moral and religious fervor.

The commemoration of the tragedy has since been the most

passionate and cherished religious observance of the Shīʿites
all over the world. During the first ten days of Muḥarram,
mourning assemblies (majālis-i ʿazāʾ) are held, in which the

323
tragic events of Karbalāʾ and the atrocities inflicted on
Ḥusayn and the people of the sacred house are described with
touching eloquence and moving style. On the tenth day of
Muḥarram, known as ʿĀshūrāʾ, the day of the massacre,
mourning processions are carried out with frantic expressions
of grief and sorrow, the participants beating their chests,
reciting dirges and elegies, and raising the banner of Ḥusayn,
who had so helplessly fallen in Karbalāʾ. Since the precise
form of the Muḥarram observances has not been fixed like
that of other religious duties, it is observed in different modes
and forms in different parts of the world, according to the
sociocultural traditions and genius of the people. In this way,
the same theme and spirit find expression in heterogeneous
cultural forms, representing a real unity of purpose in
diversity of manifestations. Moreover, these observances,
although focused on the martyrs of Karbalāʾ, concomitantly
express Shīʿite feelings for human sufferings and their
compassion for the downtrodden. Thus, the Arabs, the
Persians, the Turks, the
Central Asians, the Shīʿites of the subcontinent of India and
of the other parts of the world observe it with their own local
coloring and ethno-cultural sentiments.

Another aspect of Karbalāʾ was that in the course of time it

produced a tremendously rich and extensive volume of
literature in almost all Islamic languages. Tragedy has been a
most fertile soil for the finest literature man could produce,
and the tragedy of Karbalāʾ had all the material to attract the
attention of the poets and men of letters to express the eternal
values and the noblest sentiments of man. Arabic was the first
language in which short elegies were composed on Karbalāʾ,
but soon the theme was taken over by the poets of other
languages, who produced the finest pieces in all forms of

324
poetry ranging from the most sophisticated to folk songs.
Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sindhi, Pashto, and Urdu abound in
dirges, poems, and elegies on Karbalāʾ, but perhaps it is Urdu
that enriched itself with the theme of Karbalāʾ more than any
other Islamic language. Some of the great poetic geniuses of
Urdu, such as Anīs and Dabīr, raised the form of elegy
(marthiyah) to its zenith and made it the richest treasure not
only of Urdu but of world literature. Karbalāʾ elegies have the
same importance for students of Urdu literature that the plays
of Shakespeare have for students of English literature.

Pilgrimage to the Tombs of the Imams

Besides the observance of Muḥarram, the pilgrimage to the

tombs of the Imams is the second most popular practice
among the Shīʿites in the expression of their religious
consciousness. In Shīʿism, pilgrimage to the Kaʿbah is an
obligatory duty, but the pilgrimage to the tombs of the Imams
is a voluntary act of great piety and spiritual significance.
Since the Shīʿites believe that Imams are divinely inspired
religious and spiritual guides, the repositories of God’s will
and command, and the most beloved of God because of their
devotion, love, and worship, their tombs have become the
most venerated sanctuaries. It is, therefore, an ardent desire of
every Shīʿite to visit these shrines at least once in his lifetime
and, by paying homage to them, to evoke God’s Mercy and
blessings, which have been showered on these graves. These
shrines in Najaf, Karbalāʾ, Mashhad, and Samarra and also
the tombs of Imam Ḥusayn’s sister Zaynab, in Syria, and that
of Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s sister Fāṭimah, in Qumm, Iran, all
embellished with gold and ornamented with splendid
decoration, have been the centers of pilgrimage for a
countless number of Shīʿite devotees. The practice of visiting

325
and paying regards to the spiritually elevated souls is not,
however, an exclusive
practice of the Shīʿites. The majority of Sunni Muslims visit
the tombs and shrines of the saints and the mystics. The only
difference is that the Shīʿites concentrate mostly on the family
of the Prophet, whereas the Sunni Muslims accord this honor
to anyone who has attained mystical and spiritual excellence.

The Sources of Religious Law

The sources of the Sharīʿah (Law) in Shīʿism are almost the

same as those in Sunnism, namely, the Quran, the Ḥadīth
(traditions of the Prophet) and ijmāʿ (consensus) with some
difference in their interpretation; the fourth source of
Sunnism, qiyās (analogy), is replaced in Shīʿism by ʿaql
(reason). In the case of the Quran, the fountainhead of the
Divine Law, the Shīʿites accept only the interpretations given
by one of their Imams. As for Ḥadīth, the Sunnis restrict it to
the sayings of the Prophet, whereas the Shīʿites extend it to
the traditions of the Imams as well. This gives the Shīʿites a
unique advantage in that they follow a continuous and
unbroken religious tradition which remained in one family,
handed down from father to son, for a period of 261 years,
beginning with ʿAlī, the first Imam, and continuing until the
occultation of Muḥammad al-Mahdī, the twelfth, all in direct
line of descent. The term occultation refers to the hidden state
of the twelfth Imam after his disappearance from the visible
world, without his having died or being totally absent from
the visible world.

As for ijmāʿ, in Shīʿism it means consensus of religious

scholars regarding the view of the Imam on a particular legal
question. And finally qiyās, or analogical deduction, of Sunni

326
Islam has been further expanded in Shīʿism by substituting
reason (ʿaql) for it. The principle in adopting reason in place
of analogy is that, the Shīʿah think, whatever reason favors
religion agrees to; thereby the human intellect is given its due
importance alongside Revelation.

Another distinctive feature of Shīʿism is seen in the question

of ijtihād, or the personal endeavor of a religious scholar
(mujtahid) to solve a given legal problem of his time by
resorting to the original sources. In Sunnism the gate of
ijtihād was closed after the death of the four great
mujtahids—Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik ibn Anas, Muḥammad ibn
Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal—who lived in the
second/eighth and third/ninth centuries of Islam. Whatever
they had decided in their times became binding on the
community, and no one was allowed to use the basic sources
anymore. In contrast to this, in Shīʿism, the gate of ijtihād is
always open, and in every generation there are mujtahids who
can turn afresh to original sources to find an answer to a given
question in accordance with the situation of his
time. The mujtahids of each generation act as the
representatives of the hidden Imam, the Mahdī, and every
Shīʿah must follow them in Sharīʿah matters. The centers of
learning and scholarship which produce such mujtahids have
been the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, built around the shrine of
ʿAlī, and the city of Qumm in Iran, which has the shrine of
Imam Riḍā’s sister Fāṭimah.

However, in spite of these differences in the interpretation of

and the approach to the original sources, the actual
differences between Shīʿism and Sunnism in matters of
Sharīʿah practices are not much more than those between the
four rites of Sunni Islam. The Shīʿah, however, condone the

327
hiding of one’s faith if by its disclosure one’s life is in danger.
This is called taqiyyah and was allowed because of the
adverse circumstances the community passed through during
the political ascendancy of the Umayyads and the Abbasids,
who considered people’s adherence to the Imams a great
threat to their power. Nor do the Shīʿites abrogate the
provision of temporary marriage (mutʿah), allowed by the
Prophet in his lifetime especially during the wars.

Shīʿite Literature

The Twelver Shīʿites developed their own collections of

Ḥadīth and books of Law. Literary activity in Shīʿism started
as early as the time of the first Imam, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; but
it was developed extensively during the period of the sixth
Imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, when as many as four hundred of his
disciples wrote down his discourses and traditions on
doctrinal and legal matters. These treatises were known as the
“Four Hundred Principles.” Numerous disciples of the last six
Imams after Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq also preserved in writing
whatever they heard from their Imams. Some of them were
recognized as great authorities of their time on Ḥadīth, Law,
and theology. This may be called the first and formative
period of Shīʿite religious literature.

The period of consolidation and elaboration of the Shīʿite

literature, however, began toward the end of the epoch of the
Imams. A great Shīʿites divine, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb
al-Kulaynī (d. 329/940, the year the twelfth Imam went into
major occultation), compiled his monumental book of Ḥadīth,
Uṣūl al-kāfī, in which he incorporated the famous “Four
Hundred Principles” and most of the scattered treatises
written during the period of the Imamate. It was followed by

328
three other important works, namely, Man lā
yaḥḍuruhuʾl-faqīh, by Shaykh al-Ṣadūq ibn Bābawayh
al-Qummī (d. 381/991), and al-Istibṣār and Tahdhīb
al-aḥkām by Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan
al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1068). These four books established Shīʿism
firmly and have since been the main source of the Shīʿites’
Ḥadīth, jurisprudence, Law, and theology.

It is also this period in which Sayyid Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/

1015) compiled the sermons, orations, maxims, and letters of
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, which had until that time been scattered in
bits and pieces throughout various early works of history,
Ḥadīth, and biography. It is known as the Nahj al-balāghah,
and for the Shīʿah it is the most venerated book after the
Quran and the traditions of the Prophet. It is also held by the
non-Shīʿite Muslims in great esteem and respect and has
attracted a number of Sunni scholars to write commentaries
on it, the most famous of which is by Ibn Abiʾl-Ḥadīd
al-Muʿtazilī (d. 655/1257), who wrote a voluminous
commentary which itself became a classic of Islamic
literature.

ʿAlī, the first Imam of the Shīʿites and the fourth and the last
of the rightly guided caliphs of the Sunnis, had embraced
Islam at the early age of thirteen and, having been adopted by
the Prophet during his childhood, grew up under the personal
care and guardianship of the recipient of Divine Revelation,
the founder of Islam. These circumstances gave him a unique
authority to speak for Islam, its beliefs, its thoughts and
fundamental concepts, its theories and practices, its principles
and ideals, and to interpret the Quran and the Sunnah in all
cases of conscience. Therefore, his expositions are held to be
the most authoritative source of Islamic thought and practice,

329
especially by those who follow him exclusively after the
Prophet.

The material of the Nahj al-balāghah can be divided into

three parts: historical, doctrinal, and ethical. As for the
historical material, ʿAlī himself was an active and enthusiastic
participant of all the events that took place from the time of
Muḥammad’s call to prophethood in A.D. 610 to that of his
own death in 40/661. Thus, his discourses provide the most
authentic contemporary account of the formative phase of
Islam. As for doctrine, who could have more authority to
speak on doctrinal teachings, which he received directly and
intimately from the Prophet? Moreover, ʿAlī was himself an
Imam and the walī and, therefore, divinely inspired as the
source of doctrine. The following few lines on the concept of
God from the very first sermon of the Nahj al-balāghah will
give some idea of how ʿAlī’s sagacious and philosophical
mind was formed by Islamic teachings, which he expressed
with unparalleled eloquence:

Praise be to God whose praise cannot be attained by the (best of) orators,
whose blessings cannot be counted by the enumerators and whose due cannot
be paid by the strivers—He whom the utmost (human) ambitions cannot
perceive and the deepest wisdom cannot reach; He for whose description
there
are no definable limits or available epithet, or countable time or stretchable
duration.

330
26. “Firdowsi’s parable on the Ship of Shi‘ism,” Persian, ca.
1530s.

The first essential (i.e. beginning) of belief is His knowledge, the perfection
of His knowledge is His verification, the perfection of verification is His
unity, the perfection of His unity is to consider Him free (from human

331
qualities) and the perfection of considering Him free (from anthropomorphic
qualities) is the negation of (human) attributes from Him, as every attribute
attests that it is other than the attributee and every attributee testifies that it is
other than the attribute. So he who ascribes attributes to God, the Glorious,
associates something with Him, and he who associates something with Him
duplicates Him, and he who duplicates Him splits Him up, and he who splits
Him up is ignorant of Him, and he who is ignorant of Him points towards
Him, and he who points towards Him defines Him, and he who defines Him
counts Him; and he who asks: “In what?” includes Him, and he who asks:
“On what?” detracts from Him. He is a Being, not by creation or accident;
existent not by being ever non-existent; with everything yet not by
association, and other than everything but not by separation.

As for the importance of the Nahj al-balāghah, it may suffice

to point out that all later works of the Shīʿites, whether in the
field of Quranic commentaries, Ḥadīth, jurisprudence and
Law, or in theology, philosophy, Sufism, and ethics, were
immensely influenced by it. The impact of ʿAlī’s thought is
also clearly evident in Sunni works, especially those of ethics,
philosophy, Sufism, and theosophy. Moreover, the Nahj
al-balāghah’s effects on Arabic philology and literature have
been most conspicuous.

Subsequent periods in the history of Shīʿite literature, spread

over about eight hundred years, during the supremacy of the
Mongols, the Safavids and the Qajars in Iran, and the Mughal
Empire in India, are so rich both in quality and quantity in
every branch of Islamic learning that even a brief reference to
them is not possible in this article. However, the Safavid
period of Iran is perhaps the most distinguished in that the
convergence between the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī, the
philosophy of Avicenna, the illuminationist theosophy of
Suhrawardī, and Shīʿite theology, which had started some
time before, reached its zenith. This philosophical, mystical,
theosophical, and theological blend, within the limits of

332
Islamic principles, was perfected to its highest level at the
hands of such great Shīʿite metaphysician-theologians as Mīr
Bāqir Dāmād (d. 1041/1631) and Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, better
known as Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640).

Devotional Prayers and Supplications

Recognizing God as the Merciful, the Forgiving, the sole

Creator, and the sole Sustainer, a Muslim is concomitantly
required to express these beliefs by making God the only
object of his worship. This worship in its outward
dimension expresses itself in prescribed prayers, fasting, etc.;
but in its inward dimension it finds expression in touching
supplications and moving devotional prayers. Supplications
and devotional prayers are thus the most profound form of a
Muslim’s confession of his surrender to the will of the
Almighty.

The Prophet of Islam and the twelve Imams from among his
descendants, with their esoteric knowledge of the Godhead,
their spirituality of the highest level, their purified souls, their
ethical and moral ethos, their love and unceasing
remembrance of God, and their self-denial and complete
resignation to His will, left for us some of the most
illuminating devotional prayers. These supplications reveal
man’s urgency of poverty, prostration of humility, the fervor
of penitence, the firmness of trust. They are not just
eloquence, but earnestness; not figures of speech, but
compunction of soul and the cry of unshakable faith to the ear
of mercy. These are thus the finest spiritual literature of
Islam.

333
Some of the prayers composed by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib are not
only the masterpieces of devotional literature but also the
fountainhead of philosophical, mystical, metaphysical,
ethical, and theological concepts of Islam. Such fundamental
topics as those relating to God’s Unity, Eternity, and
Creativity, His Power and Majesty, His Mercy and
Forgiveness, God in Himself and God in relation to mankind
are dealt with in these prayers with devotional fervor and
eloquence of exposition.

A few lines of the supplication that he wrote for one of his

disciples, Kumayl ibn Ziyād, demonstrate these qualities:

Oh God, I ask Thee by Thy mercy,

which embraces all things;

by Thy strength,

through which Thou dominatest all things;

toward which all things are humble

and before which all things are lowly;

by Thy invincibility,

through which Thou overwhelmest all things;

by Thy might, which nothing can resist;

by Thy tremendousness, which has filled all things

by Thy force, which towers over all things;

by Thy face,

which subsists after the annihilation of all things;

334
by Thy Names;

which have filled the foundations of all things;

by Thy knowledge, which encompasses all things;

and by the light of Thy face,

through which all things are illumined!

.................

Oh God, forgive me every sin I have committed

and every mistake I have made!2

A very important collection of supplications which must be

given particular attention here is al-Ṣaḥīfat al-sajjādiyyah or
al-Ṣaḥīfat al-kāmilah of the fourth Imam, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn,
also called al-Sayyid al-Sajjād, the leader of the worshipers.
This collection is known also as the “Psalms of the Family of
the Holy Prophet.” The only surviving son of the martyr of
Karbalāʾ, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn witnessed the massacre of his
father and eighteen male members of his family, which left a
deep impression on his soul and made him cry throughout his
life. These cries poured forth in the throbbing passion of
devotional prayers seeking communion with God and
entrusting the secrets of inner life to Him. In these prayers,
one finds in the din and bustle of life, in the clash of emotions
and interests, in the stress and strain of immediate urges, in
the calamities and tensions of existence, and, above all, in the
search for spiritual satisfaction, a man lonely and helpless,
who stands before his Creator in direct communication with
Him and calls Him from the very depths of his heart. Thus,
the supplications of the Ṣaḥīfah are the best expression of the
relationship between man and God, between the worshiper

335
and the Worshiped, between the slave and the Master,
between the lover and the Beloved, between the distressed
and the Comforter, and, indeed, between the individual soul
and the universal Soul. The following passage may give some
idea of the beauties enshrined in his prayers:

O Lord: Thou art the one through whose mercy the erring
pray for redress; the one in the remembrance of whose grace
the afflicted take refuge; the one in dread of whom the guilty
bitterly weep! O solace of every sad straggler, and O delight
of every brokenhearted sufferer, and O redresser of the
forsaken and lonely, and O helper of the needy and far exiled,
who hast surrounded everything with mercy and knowledge!
It is Thou who hast allotted every creature a share in Thy
blessings; and it is Thou whose forgiveness is superior to his
chastisement; and it is Thou whose mercy walks in front of
his wrath; and it is Thou whose generosity is more frequent
than his refusal; and it is Thou whose power and prosperity
embrace all creatures. . . . Here I am ready to obey Thee! Here
I am at Thy call! Behold O Lord, here I am prostrate in Thy
presence!3

Notes

1. Quoted in S. M. Jafri, The Origins and Early Development

of Shiʾa Islam (London: Longman, 1979) 294.

2. Supplications (Duʿā) of Amīr al-mūʾminīn ʿAlī ibn Abī

Ṭālib, trans. W. C. Chittick (London: Muhammadi Trust: n.d.)
20.

336
3. The Sahifat-ul-Kamilah, trans. A. A. Mohani (Lucknow:
Muayyed-ul-Uloom Association, 1969–70) Supplication No.
16, p. 61.

337
338
 10

Ismāʿīlism

AZIM NANJI

ISMĀʿĪLISM IS PART OF THE SHĪʿITE branch of Islam

whose adherents constitute at present a small minority within
the wider Muslim ummah. They live in over twenty-five
different countries, including Afghanistan, East Africa, India,
Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, the United Kingdom, North
America, and also parts of China and the Soviet Union.

Historical Background

In common with Shīʿite Islam, Ismāʿīlism affirms that after

the death of the Prophet Muḥammad his cousin and
son-in-law, ʿAlī, became Imam, based on a specific
designation made by the Prophet before his death. Such a
leadership, it was believed, was to continue thereafter by
heredity through ʿAlī and his wife Fāṭimah, the Prophet’s
daughter. Succession to the Imamate, according to Shīʿite
doctrine and tradition, was to be based on naṣṣ (designation)
by the Imam of the time.

In the course of Shīʿite history, differences arose over the

issue of succession to the position of Imam. The most
significant in terms of the subsequent emergence of Shīʿite
Ismāʿīlism followed the death of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq in 148/
765. The body of Shīʿites who continued to give allegiance to

339
the line of Imam Jaʿfar’s descendants through his son Ismāʿīl
came to be known as Ismāʿīliyyah; others who accepted a
younger son Mūsā Kāẓim are known as Ithnā ʿasharīyyah.1

According to Ismāʿīlī sources, the next four Imams, while

maintaining anonymity to avoid persecution, were engaged in
organizing the Ismāʿīlī movement, so that when it finally
emerged into the public limelight in the third/ninth century,
there existed a sophisticated political and doctrinal structure
by which Ismāʿīlism was able to gain widespread support and
political success. The organization created by the Imams to
undertake this
work is known as the daʿwā—a term based on the Quran
(LXI, 7), signifying a call or an invitation to Islam. Although
not unique to the Ismāʿīlīs, the skillful organization and the
highly effective network of communications, and the
intellectual and diplomatic accomplishments of its
representatives—each of whom was called a dāʿī in the
organization—gave it a very special character within
Ismāʿīlism.

During the period in which Ismāʿīlism was developing and

spreading, the daʿwā was often beset with problems of
organization and unity, which led to occasional defections
over matters of policy and even doctrine. In spite of such
setbacks and the adverse conditions under which the daʿwā
often operated, great success was achieved in parts of Iran,
Yemen, and North Africa, which led in 297/910 to the
proclamation of the Imam of the time as the Amīr
al-Muʾminīn (commander of the faithful) with the title of
al-Mahdī (the guide). This marked the opening phase of the
Ismāʿīlī attempt to give concrete shape to their vision of an
Islamic society. The dynasty of the Imams, which ruled from

340
North Africa and then Egypt for over two centuries, adopted
the title al-Fāṭimiyyūn (Fāṭimids) after Fāṭimah, the Prophet’s
daughter who was married to ʿAlī.2

During the period of Fāṭimid rule, the influence and extent of

Ismāʿīlism grew considerably. The Fāṭimid empire at its
height exerted its influence far beyond Egypt to Palestine,
Syria, the Hijaz, Yemen, Iran, Sind, and the Mediterranean. In
450/1058, the Fāṭimids also occupied Baghdad, the capital of
their rivals the Abbasid dynasty, for a short period.

The Ismāʿīlī daʿwā played a very important role in

maintaining ideological loyalty and support within this
far-flung empire. It served also to create a unified doctrine
and organization to offset the differences that had beset the
movement during its earlier stages. Its efforts at preaching
Islam extended its influence into India and to the remoter
regions of Central Asia.

It was in the sphere of intellectual and cultural life that

Fāṭimid Ismāʿīlī achievement seems most brilliant and
outstanding. The Fāṭimid patronage of learning and its
encouragement of scientific research and cultural activity
made Cairo a renowned center, attracting mathematicians,
physicians, astronomers, thinkers, and administrators of note
from all over the Muslim world, particularly to its two great
universities, al-Azhar and Dār al-Ḥikmah. These seats of
learning also gave impetus to the development of legal,
philosophical, and theological thinking among Ismāʿīlī
scholars, which provided the basis for a comprehensive
articulation of Ismāʿīlī thought and doctrine. The cultural and
economic impact of Fāṭimid rule extended also into Europe,
bridging the way for further development in the West of

341
Muslim scientific achievements in fields such as optics,
medicine, and astronomy.

The expansion of Fāṭimid influence and the efforts of the

daʿwā brought the Fāṭimids into conflict with existing rulers
such as the Abbasids and later the Seljuqs. In addition, during
this later phase, the empire was adversely affected by famines
and internal disputes among various sections of the army.
After the death of Imam al-Ḥākim in 411/1021, a group of
Ismāʿīlīs broke away from the daʿwā, preferring to remain
faithful to the memory of al-Ḥākim. Thus, they gave birth to
what later came to be known as the Druze movement.

A much more serious rift occurred following the death of

Imam al-Mustanṣir in 487/1094. In Iran and parts of Syria, the
Ismāʿīlīs supported his elder son and designated heir, Nizār,
whereas in Egypt, Yemen, and Sind, Nizār’s younger brother,
al-Mustaʿlī, was believed to have been designated as the new
Imam by al-Mustanṣir on his deathbed. These two Ismāʿīlī
groups are called Nizārī and Mustʿalī Ismāʿīlīs respectively.
Both groups shared a common Fāṭimid heritage, but their
histories and development evolved in different directions. The
division led to the subsequent dissolution of Fāṭimid rule in
Egypt, but the continuing activity of the two groups was a
vital factor in the survival and reemergence of Ismāʿīlʿ
influence outside Egypt.

Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Daʿwā

Yemen had been one of the strongholds of the Fāṭimid empire

and a vigorous center of the Ismāʿīlī daʿwā.3 After
al-Mustanṣir’s death, the daʿwā in Yemen supported
al-Mustaʿlī and, after him, his son and successor, al-Āmir.

342
With his death in 524/1130, there was a further division
within the Mustaʿlī branch of Ismāʿīlism. In Yemen, the
daʿwā supported the right of al-Āmir’s infant son, al-Ṭayyib,
to be Imam, rejecting the claims of the uncle-regent ʿAbd
al-Majīd, who subsequently had himself proclaimed Imam.
The latter’s line did not last long, passing out of significance
with the capture of Egypt by the Ayyūbids. The supporters of
al-Ṭayyib, meanwhile, came to believe that he was in a state
of concealment (sitr) and that the Imams who succeeded
al-Ṭayyib would henceforth live in such a state until the time
of manifestation. In their absence the daʿwā’s affairs were
entrusted to a chief dāʿī, called dāʿī muṭlaq.

The center of this group remained in Yemen for several

centuries, establishing a vigorous state for a while, but, faced
with hostility, it moved eventually to India, where the new
headquarters came to be established in 947/1567. The
community in Yemen dwindled in time, although followers
of this branch of Ismāʿīlism—particularly of a subsequent
offshoot of the Ṭayyibī daʿwā known as the Sulaymānīs, who
give allegiance to a chief daʿī residing in Yemen—are still to
be found in certain regions of that land.

In India, the Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs continued to develop under a

chief dāʿī and succeeded, sometimes under adverse
conditions, in sustaining successfully their religious life and
organization. The majority there are called Dāʾūdī, to
distinguish them from the Sulaymānī line and both groups are
referred to also as Bohora, which denotes their occupation as
traders and merchants. The chief dāʿī of the Dāʾūdī group
resides in Bombay; the community is concentrated in the
provinces of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, in most major

343
cities of India and Pakistan, in East Africa, and lately in
smaller numbers in Europe and North America.

The Nizārī Ismāʿīlī Daʿwā

The history of the Nizārī branch of Ismāʿīlism is marked by

their adherence to the goals set by the Fāṭimids as well as by
the emergence of newer goals and policies in the context of a
changing and increasingly hostile environment.4 Particularly
in Iran, where Ismāʿīlī influence had already been established
under the Fāṭimids, the Nizārī daʿwā had to function in
markedly changed circumstances, which were due not only to
the severance of ties with Cairo but also to the presence of the
powerful, militantly Sunni Turkish dynasty of the Seljuqs. In
addition to the hostility prevailing in the political and military
spheres, the daʿwā, like its predecessor under the Fāṭimids,
became the object of theological and intellectual attacks that
often sought to portray it in a deliberately negative and
distorted fashion. This often led to quite fantastic and
legendary notions about their history and thought. Pejorative
terms like “assassins,” etc. still persist in popular writings,
although serious scholarly work has led to considerable
revision of this distorted view and greater understanding of
their history and aspirations.

The focal point of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlī movement was the

fortress of Alamūt in the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran.
This fortress, captured by the dāʿī Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ in 483/
1090, now became the center for a growing number of
strongholds that were established through military and
diplomatic means. In time, these centers became networks of
Ismāʿīlī settlements in Iran as well as in Syria, where a similar
pattern of establishing strongholds in mountainous regions

344
took place. Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ, according to Nizārī tradition,
acted as the representative of the Imam, organizing the
various settlements. This process of consolidation provided a
basis for what
was to become a Nizārī Ismāʿīlī state that incorporated both
Iranian and Syrian strongholds and was ruled from Alamūt by
Ismāʿīlī Imams, who assumed control after the initial period
of establishment under representatives such as Ḥasan-i
Ṣabbāḥ. Although under constant pressure from the Seljuqs,
the state had a thriving existence for over 150 years.
However, confrontation with the expanding Mongol power
led to the downfall of the state, the demolition of its principal
strongholds, and a general and widespread massacre of
Ismāʿīlīs.

The history of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs following the destruction

of their state and the dispersal of their leaders in Iran and
elsewhere is little known. In Syria, as in Iran, they continued
to survive despite persecution. Often in Iran their organization
resembled that of the Sufi ṭarīqahs (orders), which by now
had established themselves all over the Muslim world. The
Nizārī sources speak of an uninterrupted succession of Imams
in different parts of Iran and, in the ninth/fifteenth century, of
an emergence of new activity on the part of the daʿwā which
led to a further growth of Nizārī Ismāʿīlism in parts of India
and Central Asia, to which the Imam in Iran remained linked
through the activities of the dāʿīs. In general, however, the
various communities of Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs in Iran, Syria, Central
Asia, and India remained relatively isolated and
self-protective for several centuries, mindful of the constant
threat of persecution.

345
In the thirteenth/ninteenth century, the Imam of the time,
Ḥasan ʿAlī Shāh, called the Agha Khan, migrated to India
from Iran. In the twentieth century, under the leadership of
the last two Imams, Sir Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh, Agha Khan
III (1294/1877–1377/1957), and Shāh Karīm al-Ḥusaynī,
Agha Khan IV (b. 1936), both of whom have played a major
leadership role in Muslim as well as international affairs, the
Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs have effected a successful transition to the
modern period in many parts of the world. This
reorganization has encompassed developments in various
spheres of education, health, economic and cultural life and
has been linked wherever possible to national goals and in
recent times on a more global scale to creating a greater
self-consciousness among Ismāʿīlīs as well as other Muslims
of the role their Islamic heritage can play in modern life.

The Heritage and Its Themes

Ismāʿīlīs have been designated by several names in the past.

By those who were hostile to them and regarded their vision
of Islam as heretical, they have been accused of heresy and
extremism, of being exclusively baṭīniyyah (esotericists), and
of having several legends fabricated about them and their
teachings. Those heresiographers who sought significance in
the sequence
of Imams with its attendant numerology used the designation
sabʿyyah, “seveners,” since the number seven was significant
in the elaboration of Ismāʿīlī sacred history. Since early
Western scholarship of Ismāʿīlism depended primarily on
non-Ismāʿīlī sources, it inherited the biases already present in
such accounts. Ismāʿīlī writers, for instance, used terms such
as al-daʿwat al-hādiyah (the rightly-guided daʿwā) in
referring to their movement, so that strictly speaking the term

346
Ismāʿīliyyah and its variants originated with and were to be
found primarily in the work of polemicists and heresiologists.
Recent scholarship, based on a more judicious analysis of
such sources and on Ismāʿīlī materials as they become more
readily available, provides a considerably revised and more
balanced picture.

Early Ismāʿīlī works are mostly in Arabic; Nāṣir-i Khusraw

was the only Fāṭimid writer who wrote in Persian. The Arabic
tradition was continued in Yemen and in India by the
Mustaʿlīs, and in Syria by the Nizārīs. In Iran, the literature is
in Persian, which for the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs there, as in Central
Asia, became the significant language. In India, the dāʿīs
developed a traditional literature called ginān (knowledge)
using the vernacular languages such as Sindhi and Gujarati. In
the northern area of modern Pakistan, the Ismāʿīlīs of Hunza,
Gilgit, and Chitral have also preserved and continue to evolve
a literature based on what have been hitherto oral languages
such as Burushaski, Shina, and Khowar, although the
Arabic-Urdu script is being increasingly used at present.5

Thus, there is considerable diversity of thought and

development represented in the literature, much of which still
remains to be properly edited—let alone carefully studied.
The following exposition of Ismāʿīlī doctrine and spirituality
can be regarded as a heritage shared in general by all Ismāʿīlīs
in the context of their effort to relate questions of authority
and organization in the ummah to an understanding of the
inner core of the Islamic message and the values contained in
that message.

A very significant feature of Ismāʿīlī thought is the

comprehensiveness of its scope and a specificity with regard

347
to its method. It shares with other schools of Islam the ideal
of understanding and implementing Islam in its totality in
order that the ummah might be governed by Divine Will
rather than human caprice. In common with the other Shīʿites,
Ismāʿīlīs maintained that it was through the agency of a
divinely guided Imam descended from ʿAlī that such an ideal
could be realized. The doctrine of the Imam, therefore,
occupied a central place in Shīʿism, and obedience and
devotion to him were considered the principal indexes of
acceptance of the Divine Message of Islam. This principle
received a central and specific emphasis in Ismāʿīlism,
because it was through the Imam that a true understanding of
Islam was obtained, and in obeying him the duties of a true
believer were
fulfilled. Such a view did not rule out the use of the rational
or intellectual faculty on the part of the believer. In fact, true
understanding came to be defined as the ultimate unfolding of
human reason (ʿaql) to its fullest potential under the guidance
of the Imam. It is the working out of this process that
provides the key to understanding the heart of Ismāʿīlī
spirituality as exemplified in their literature and in their
concepts of learning and knowledge.

The curriculum in Fāṭimid seats of learning led an individual

through progressive and disciplined study of a wide variety of
sciences. The student commenced study with the aim of
mastering al-ʿībādāt al-ʿamaliyyah (practical worship), the
sciences necessary to grasp and define the Sharīʿah in terms
of the pillars of faith, a Sharīʿah which shared a number of
essential characteristics with those of other Muslim legal
schools. After mastering these subjects, the student then
proceeded to a study of al-ʿibādāt al-ʿīlmiyyah (intellectual

348
worship), the sciences that expound and interpret the levels of
meaning reflected in the pillars.

This methodology in Ismāʿīlī thought is best brought out by

Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s explanation of the nature of Revelation
and, by inference, religion. There are two aspects of
Revelation tanzīl (Revelation) and taʾwīl (hermeneutic
interpretation), which are reflected in the Ḥaqīqah and the
Sharīʿah, the latter being like a symbol of the Ḥaqīqah
(truth).6 Tanzīl thus defines the letter of the Revelation
embodied in the coming down of the values of the Sharīʿah,
and taʾwīl is the hermeneutical analysis of the letter leading to
the original meaning. Jean Pépin, in analyzing the original
Greek word hermeneuein states:

As used generally the word has come to signify “interpretation” and that
hermeneutics today commonly has as its synonym “exegesis.” However, the
original meaning of hermeneuein and of related words—or in any case their
principal meaning—was not that at all, and was not far from being its exact
contrary, if we grant that exegesis is a movement of penetration into the
intention of a text or message.7

In context above, the Arabic sense of taʾwīl, to go back to the

first or original meaning, can be said to designate a similar
interpretive function. The goal of taʾwīl in Ismāʿīlī thought is
to enable the believer to penetrate beyond the formal, literal
meaning of the text and to create a sense of certitude
regarding the ultimate relevance and meaning of a given
passage in the Quran. All interpretation in Ismāʿīlī thought
assumes such an exegetical basis, leading by way of levels of
meaning to the ultimate truths expressed as the concept of
Ḥaqīqah. The validity of the literal (ẓāhir) is not denied, but it
is only one aspect of an overall meaning that also has an inner

349
dimension (bāṭin). When applied to the study of the Quran,
Islam, and religion, it led to the rise of two differing but
complementary genres of literature among the
Ismāʿīlīs—ḥaqāʾiq literature, which contains the esoteric
tradition, and other forms of writing that are expository and
whose subject matter related to Law, governance, and history.

The milieu within which Ismāʿīlī thought flourished and

developed had already been characterized by the steady
integration of philosophical and analytical tools assimilated
through translations from the Greek tradition, as well as
influences transmitted through Persia and India. Ismāʿīlī
thought represents a self-conscious attempt to harmonize
elements from these traditions that were considered
compatible with its own understanding of Quranic wisdom.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw calls this jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn, “synthesis of
the two wisdoms,”8 the title of one of his works, in which he
seeks to harmonize the esoteric understanding of Islam with
the wisdom of the ancients. In doing this he was following the
fundamental Quranic notion of the universality of Revelation
and the Islamic affirmation that God had vouchsafed the truth
to others in the past. The synthesis, however, was not an
indiscriminate one, and it has also been argued that in
addition to Neoplatonism, early Ismāʿīlī sources also reflect
influences from Gnostic elements in the milieu.9

Unity and the Cosmos

Tawḥīd is the most fundamental concept of Islam. Its

interpretation and exegesis by Ismāʿīlī thinkers demonstrate
the operation of the Ismāʿīlī science of hermeneutics. One of
the points of contention among early Muslim theologians had
to do with an explanation of the Quranic verses concerning

350
the Attributes of God, particularly where such Attributes
reflected human associations such as sitting, hearing,
speaking, etc. For the Ismāʿīlī thinker, this controversy
highlighted one of the problems he came to be concerned with
in understanding and explicating through taʾwīl the seeming
contradiction in these verses. Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. 360/
971) and Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (c. 411/1021), two
well-known thinkers of the Fāṭimid period, established as
their goal an interpretation that was free of the two errors they
attributed to other theologians.10 The first is tashbīh
(anthropomorphism, i.e., trying to understand God by
comparison or analogy); the second is taʾtīl (i.e., denying
tashbīh and thereby deleting from the description of God all
Attributes). Their concern was not to establish through
rational means the existence of God, since rational proof of
that which is beyond the capacity of rational understanding
would represent a
futile exercise in itself, but rather, according to Sijistāanī, to
understand God as He deserves to be understood, so as to
accord Him the true worship that is due to Him alone.
Kirmānī’s exegesis occurs in his classic work Rāḥat al-ʿaql
(Balm for the Intellect). The title of the work itself indicates
the essentially spiritual goal of the intellectual exercise—a
sense of contentment and satisfaction that comes to the
human mind in its proper interaction with Revelation, rather
than mere vindication of the power of the rational faculty as
over against Revelation. It is this attitude that caused Ismāʿīlī
writers to oppose the views of Rhazes (Abū Bakr Muḥammad
Zakariyyāʾ Rāzī), particularly where the latter raises questions
about the validity of the mission of the prophets and, by
inference, the validity of a religious world view.

351
The taʾwīl applied to the Quranic verses regarding God leads
in both writers to a process of dissociating all humanlike
qualities from God. This is considered to be the first step;
both writers recognize that such a position could, in fact, lead
to an accusation that they too had committed taʾṭīl, leaving
them open to a charge of “hidden anthropomorphism.” The
step that must now be taken is that having denied that God
cannot be described, located, defined, limited, etc., one must
negate the previous negation. The absolute transcendence of
God is established by the use of double negation, in which a
negative and a negative of a negative are applied to the thing
denied—the first freeing the idea of God from all association
with the material and the second removing Him from any
association with the non-material. God is thus neither within
the sensible world nor within the extrasensible. The process
of taʾwīl here begins with an affirmation of what God is not,
then a denial of that affirmation, thereby deleting both the
affirmation and the denial. Such a process of double negation
offers the only means whereby one can use the available
language without fully accepting its premises. In the above
discourse, the resources of language, that is, the letter of the
Revelation, establish a starting point, and taʾwīl reveals how
language itself is unable to express fully the reality inherent in
the concept. Such a mode of defining the transcendence of
God, in the Ismāʿīlī view, is an act of cognizance of
God—indeed, an act of worship in itself.

This principle of unity is also reflected in Ismāʿīlī

cosmological principles. In elaborating this cosmology, the
writers adapted elements of the Neoplatonic schema of
emanation, but not without establishing an Islamic context for
the adaptation. At the heart of the cosmology is the principle
of order, a harmonious totality. The various components of

352
the cosmic structure were also regarded as constituting a
hierarchical structure. The planets and the abstract principles
that governed them were ranked one above the other, just as
the prophets, the Imams, and the officials of the
daʿwā and members of the community formed a hierarchy
with clearly defined status.

God transcended the order and unlike in Neoplatonism, where

the One brings forth by emanation the Universal Intellect, in
Ismāʿīlī cosmology, Allāh creates by a timeless and
transcendent command (amr). The process is defined as ibdāʿ,
origination, which is an all-encompassing, timeless, creative
act. Thus, all of creation is directly related to God in its
origin, but manifested through a subsequent process of
unfolding from the Universal Intellect, which is the First
Originated Being. God is badīʿ (Originator), as described in
the Quranic verse—the Originator of the heavens and the
earth (II, 117). The Quranic terminology of Qalam (pen),
ʿArsh (throne), and qaḍāʾ (decree) are also equated with the
Universal Intellect as the prelude to a framework for what is
called ʿālam al-ibdāʾ (the Universe of Origination) in a
hierarchical series. This level is then made to correspond to
the ʿālam al-dīn (the Universe of Religion), in order to
provide a framework in religious life represented by a
hierarchy of faith (ḥudūd al-dīn), which in turn corresponds to
the various cosmic principles. The highest in this hierarchy
constituting the first three intelligences were identified with
the Prophet, his waṣī (heir), ʿAlī, and the succeeding Imams
respectively. This order was expounded in systems first
elaborated in detail by al-Nasafī (d. 331/943) and
subsequently refined in the works of Sijistānī, Kirmānī, and
Nāṣir-i Khusraw. The exact hierarchy of the various intellects
and the terminology employed tend to differ in the various

353
authors’ works, but the fundamental principle of the absolute
transcendence of God, the general order of the cosmic
principles and underlying hierarchical notions are retained.

The architecture of the Ismāʿīlī cosmos, while affirming a

strong sense of unity, is also the sacred canopy within which
its religious conceptions unfold. Thus, cosmology,
metaphysics, and religion are closely interlinked, where each
element in the hierarchical universe mirrors the other,
establishing a chain of being, making the cosmos intelligible
and meaningful and at the same time rooting the religious life
on earth to a dynamic cosmos, operating under divine
command.

Sacred History and Human Destiny

In the view of the cosmos described above, history unfolds as

a “sacred” series of events imbued with Divine Purpose. This
unfolding is seen in cyclical terms based on the taʾwīl of
creation in the following Quranic verse:

God who created the heavens and the earth in six days (VII, 54).

Al-Muʾayyad fiʾl-dīn Shīrāzī (d. 470/1077) in his

interpretation of the verse starts by demonstrating that the
reference to days bears no relation to the conception of a day
measured with the rising and setting of the sun.11 Since there
was no sun before creation, it would be absurd, he argues, to
suppose such a measure of time in relation to God’s creative
power. He then refers to other Quranic references where God
is said to create faster than the twinkling of an eye, and he
concludes that the references to heaven and earth have in
reality nothing to do with the heaven, earth, and days as

354
conceived in terms of man’s measure of space and time. The
true taʾwīl of the verse reveals a sacred history, connoting the
six cycles of prophecy, each an event of cosmic significance.
The prophets and the time-cycles they represent are Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the Prophet Muḥammad.

Each prophetic mission inaugurates a Sharīʿah, a revealed

pattern of life to ensure that society accords with the Divine
Will. Each prophet, however, is succeeded by the waṣī, who,
while preserving and consolidating the Sharīʿah, also has the
role of interpreting and communicating the inner meaning of
the Revelation and the legal prescriptions. The completion of
the sixth cycle also marks the onset of a seventh era, in which
the Imam assumes his role and thereby completes a process
referred to in the Quran’s climactic verse:

Today I have perfected your religion for you, and I have completed My
blessing upon you, and I have approved Islam for your religion. (V, 4)

This fulfills the goals embodied in the missions of the six

prophets, which like the “six days” do not originate to oppose
one another, but rather to succeed one another. Such an
interpretation of creation carries with it a sense of the
sacredness of history, where the most significant occurrences
turn on the prophetic missions and their fulfillment, which
leads ultimately to the salvation of humankind. Time, in this
sacred framework, returns to its source, and the whole
“movement” finally culminates in the Quranic qiyāmah, the
Great Resurrection, a resurrection of all souls to the esoteric
garden of preeternal times.

This cyclical concept of history is in turn linked to the notion

of human destiny and is best illustrated in the interpretation of

355
the Quranic account of the fall of Adam. This drama in
heaven, as explicated in the writing of al-Ḥāmidī (d. 595/
1199) and others,12 regards the story of Adam in the garden,
his temptation by Satan and his subsequent fall, as having
taken place on a cosmic plane, in the preexisting nonmaterial
world of ʿalam al-ibdāʿ.
Adam, the human being, is called Adam rūḥānī, spiritual
Adam. Using the cosmological system of the ten intellects
already expounded by Kirmānī, this account represents Adam
as having originally the status of the third intellect in rank.
The good aspect of the “tree” in the “garden” which he was
forbidden to approach is the status of the first universal
intellect. Iblīs, who is Satan, is the representation of Adam’s
own desire not to accept the status accorded to him. This
caused him to commit the sin of wrongful ambition, of
desiring to attain equality of rank with those above. The
subsequent punishment and expulsion from the garden mark
the loss of both his rank and his preeminence over other
intellects below him. He becomes the tenth intellect, but seeks
through repentance to regain his original status. It is by
returning through the intellects above him that Adam, now in
the sense that he symbolizes humankind, reverts to his
original status. It is also for this reason that the Universe of
Intellects has as its counterpart on the earth the hierarchy of
faith. Collectively this hierarchy represents the daʿwā, the
call, returning the fallen to the true path and representing a
step in the process of “ascent.” The fall is not the prelude to
the idea of “original sin,” but rather the characterization of the
cosmic process in which the cycles of prophecy and their
subsequent consummation restore the true order of things.
The role of the hierarchy is to designate for Adam, as for all
humankind, the path that must be traversed, the steps they
must ascend, in order to reach the Universal Intellect. Such a

356
return represents the potential goal that each human being can
attain and through which comes the proper recognition of
God’s Unity and the wisdom of the creative process. The
return is to that state wherein Adam was endowed with
knowledge that constituted an awareness of what the Quran
calls “the names, all of them” (II, 31), which in Ismāʿīlī
thought are no less than the ḥaqāʾiq, the universal truths.

Ritual Action, Cosmic Meaning

The Daʿāʾm al-islām of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān preserves a

definition of faith (īmān) given by Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq in
response to a question regarding an issue of some significance
among early Muslim theologians: “Tell me about faith,” he is
asked, “is it profession with action or profession without
action?” The Imam answers:

Faith consists entirely in action, and profession is part of action. Action is

made obligatory by God, and is clear from His Book. . . . Faith possesses
circumstances, stages, grades and stations. In faith, there can be total
perfection; or else it may be imperfect. . . .13

This notion of faith, which establishes action as an integral

part of spiritual development and perfection, is the basis for
the hermeneutics of ritual in Ismāʿīlism and for the interplay
of the ideas of ẓāhir and bāṭin, which in this context can refer
to ritual action and its inner universal meaning. These perfect
the human capacity to act and to develop awareness of the
meaning of that action on a cosmic scale. The Dāʿaʾim is a
work defining the sphere of ritual action, the Sharīʿah, and
al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān also went on to write Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾim,
which defines the sphere of inner meaning related to ritual
action. The discourse between the two spheres is best

357
illustrated in the hermeneutics of the daily prayer (ṣalāt) in
Islam.14

In defining the taʾwīl of ṣalāt, al-Nuʿmān states that it

symbolizes daʿwa, not in the limited sense of the institution
under the Fāṭimids, which carried on the tasks of studying and
preaching Ismāʿīlī doctrine, but in the wider sense of a call or
summoning to the Prophet’s message and its continuing
affirmation by the Imam of the time. Ṣalāt then stands for
Islam, to which the Prophet and the Imams after him call
humankind.

Specifically, he begins with the taʾwīl of the times for ritual

prayer, based on references to the Quran (II, 238; XVII,
78–79; etc.). The established prayers during each day signify
the great epochs of the Sharīʿah initiated by the five great
prophets who came after Adam—Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and Muḥammad.

Nāṣir-i Khusraw also attempts to elaborate the taʾwīl of the

three stages of time he identifies within the ritual of prayer
itself—the beginning, the middle, and the end. The beginning
stage symbolizes the nāṭiq, the Ismāʿīlī term for the Prophet
as the promulgator of Revelation; the middle stage stands for
asās, the interpreter of the inner meaning of Revelation; and
the final stage stands for the qāʾim al-qiyāmah, in which both
the outer and the inner are fused and transcended. Such a
cyclical view of history is an important aspect of Ismāʿīlī
thought and illustrates the dual dimension of time that
Ismāʿīlī writers saw reflected in the Quran. The first
dimension provided a body of rituals and doctrines for a
historical community; the second transposed these rituals and
doctrines to a level of meaning beyond the historical

358
constraints of time, where this tanzīl was metamorphosed by
taʾwīl to provide the individual Muslim an opportunity to
grasp the root cosmic meaning of the revealed Law.

Before discussing specifically the performance of the ritual

prayer itself, al-Nuʿmān makes an interesting reference to the
qiblah, the point of orientation for prayer, taking as his
reference the verse “so set thy face to al-dīn (the religion)
ḥanīfan (as a primordial monotheist)” (XXX, 30). He points
out that at one level this is the point of orientation to which
ḥunīfāʾ
(primordial monotheists) like Ibrāhīm and Adam set
themselves—the Kaʿbah (or even perhaps Jerusalem). In its
esoteric sense, the verse refers to the waṣī, the Prophet’s
successor, through whom the Prophet turns his face to the
community and through whom the bāṭin of religion is
affirmed during the Prophet’s own lifetime and the ẓāhir
established to serve as a point of continuity after his death.

The discussion then proceeds to the steps incorporated within

prayer itself. These according to Nāṣir-i Khusraw are seven:
(1) takbīr, which symbolizes the taking of the covenant from
a muʾmin. During takbīr, the believers are required to be
silent and to concentrate their attention fully on the
performance of prayer—in the same way that a muʾmin from
whom the covenant has been taken should not manifest his
quest for the bāṭin openly lest his intentions be misconstrued
and his words misunderstood. (2) Qiyām, standing, which
symbolizes the firm affirmation of the muʾmin to stand by his
covenant and not be swayed from it. (3) Recitation of the
Fāṭihah and an additional sura, which symbolizes
communication with the rest of the community, conveying to
them the meaning of faith and elaborating it for them. (4)

359
Rukūʿ, bowing, which symbolizes the recognition of the asās
and during his absence the ḥujjah, who is the evidence for his
existence. (5) Sujūd, prostration, which symbolizes the
recognition of the nāṭiq as the heralder of a “great cycle” and
the Imam of that cycle. (6) Tashahhud, which symbolizes the
recognition of the dāʿī. (7) The offering of salām marks the
giving of permission to manifest in conversation and action
one’s faith, just as after the offering of salām in ritual prayer
one is permitted to converse.

When the worshiper completes the performance of ṣalāt in

ẓāhir, he has correspondingly sought to fulfill his inner quest,
which involves a recognition of the inner meaning of the
steps. In essence, then, the taʾwīl of the steps within ṣalāt is
that they are stages in the journey of the individual soul in its
quest for the inner realities of the Faith.

The essence of such an interpretation of prayer is summed up

thus by Nāṣir-i Khusraw:

The exoteric (ẓāhir) of Prayer consists in adoring God with postures of the
body, in directing the body towards the qibla of the body, which is the
Kaʿbah, the Temple of the Most High God, situated at Mekka. To understand
the esoteric of Prayer (taʾwīl-e-bāṭin) means adoring God with the thinking
soul and turning towards the quest of the gnosis of the Book and the gnosis of
positive religion, towards the qibla of the spirit which is the Temple of God,
that Temple in which the divine gnosis is enclosed, I mean the Imam in
Truth, salutations to him.15

One result of studying these examples of taʾwīl is a

recognition of the
dialectic that underlies the hermeneutics. As the taʾwīl
unfolds, it moves always from the level of the specific and
temporal to that of the cosmic and eternal. Taʾwīl is
historically rooted in the community and in tradition; it builds

360
and shapes itself until the individual experiences it as part of
his intellectual and spiritual growth. In Islam, according to
these writings, the performance of prayer ought to involve
each Muslim in a constant dialogue with the meaning of life
and the cosmos, an idea that is at the heart of Ismāʿīlī
doctrine. Another result of this study is the recognition that
the bāṭin of ṣalāt, what Nāṣir-i Khusraw calls the “adoration
with the thinking soul,” complements the ẓāhir, so that in the
outward performance of the act of prayer one is
simultaneously involving the intellectual and spiritual
faculties.

Quest and Transformation

Among the accounts of the activity of Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs, there

occurs a type of narrative, a description almost “mythical” in
form, which describes key moments in the birth and
development of an inner consciousness, revealing at the level
of personal and spiritual life the themes of quest and
transformation. The idea of the quest is at the heart of the
notion of taʾwīl, for by this tool of comprehension one begins
the search for inner meaning. Simultaneously, as is evident in
the analysis of prayer, the quest becomes the prelude for a
transformation, which makes possible the acquisition of this
knowledge of inner meaning as one ascends the steps of the
hierarchy of faith. Besides an autobiographical Ode written
by Nāṣir-i Khusraw, there are in Ismāʿīlīliterature works such
as the Kitāb al-ʿālim waʾl-ghulām,16 and accounts preserved
in the tradition of the gināns among the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs of the
subcontinent,17 which contain such narratives, symbolic of
the two themes. The art of narratives lies in the way in which
the motifs of seeking, initiation, and transformation are
evoked and woven together so that the tapestry that emerges

361
in each case reflects a common design and pattern, even
though the “action” of the narrative is set in differing
contexts.

The autobiographical account of Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s

conversion to Ismāʿīlism refers to a dream that jars him from
what has hitherto been a life of sloth, and he subsequently
undertakes a pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way, he encounters
and is converted to Ismāʿīlism, and he is subsequently
invested with the important role of preaching as a key
member of the Fāṭimid daʿwa. It is, however, in an ode
celebrating this conversion that the pattern of taʾwīl woven
into the narrative is made apparent. His sleep becomes the
equivalent of the state of ignorance; the figure in the dream is
the catalyst who causes the act of awakening leading to the
quest; and the subsequent
resolution is symbolized in the arrival at the balad al-amīn
(Quran XCV, 31), the Cairo of the narrative, but in reality the
secure abode of true understanding, which is the goal of the
quest. The transformation is consummated through the act of
commitment, the taking of the oath of allegiance to the Imam,
the symbolism of which is evoked in the Quran (XLVIII,
18).18

In the Kitāb al-ʿālim waʾl-ghulām, the protagonist Abū Mālik

is a type of spiritual exile who, as part of his mission, has left
his home. He enters a town incognito and mingles with the
crowd before encountering a disciple. The narrative then
unfolds in a series of dialogues, so that the process of
pedagogy in Ismāʿīlism becomes evident. This process is a
threefold one. Initially, the disciple’s sense of quest is
aroused; he is sensitized to the meaning of symbols, the use of
taʾwīl, which leads from the letter to the spirit. His desire for

362
knowledge having now awakened, the disciple is eager to
know more about the figure in whose hands are placed the
keys to inner meaning and to the spiritual heaven, namely, the
Imam. In a further stage, he acquires a new name,
symbolizing his entry into a new pattern of understanding and
way of life, and in a final stage, the act of transformation is
marked in a ceremony. What transpires at this ceremony
remains unrecorded. The text does not reveal the secret; it has
only been communicated personally to the disciple.

In the narratives recorded in the ginān literature, the

description of the activities of the Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs also called
pīrs, reflect a sequence of action with certain iterative
features, such as the following: (1) the anonymous arrival at a
well-known center of religious activity; (2) the performance
of miracles and the winning over of a disciple or disciples; (3)
a period of confrontation and even rejection; (4) eventual
triumph and mass conversion; (5) departure.

The literal testimony of these narratives is, as in the last two

cases, but a mirror of the original prototype in which the
disciples pass through an initiatory process. A key set of
images is that of the “raw” and the “cooked,” where the
disciple, a princess in one case, has taken a vow to daily taste
cooked meat until the secret of who her bridegroom is to be is
revealed to her. The day that the pīr is in the vicinity, her
gamekeeper, unable to find a deer to hunt for her meat,
encounters the animals of the jungle around the pīr,
mesmerized by the playing of his song. Through a miracle,
the pīr gives a piece of the deer’s meat to the gamekeeper.
When the princess cooks and tastes it, she, as if awakened,
recognizes the nearness of her bridegroom’s presence and
seeks him out. In time a marriage takes place, bringing the

363
metaphor of the bride and groom and their marriage, marking
the transition from quest to transformation, to union.

Although all the narratives vary in context and in the setting

of their
action, they project identical themes, wherein the events lead
through a quest to a transformation, at the heart of which lies
the knowledge of universals. The image that best exemplifies
this act of cognition and illumination is the Quranic symbol of
divine radiant light, nūr (XXIV, 35).

H. Corbin has attempted to illustrate the image of the Imam as

nūr (light) in the works of the Fāṭimid and post-Fāṭimid
period to elucidate the essential elements of what he calls “the
little known and scarcely studied form of Shīʿite Ismāʿīlian
Gnosis,”19 where reference is made to the complex image of
the pillar of light (haykal nurānī), by whose power the
members of the hierarchy of faith are raised upward until they
are all gathered together in the qiyāmah.

The later period of Ismāʿīlism reflects features that are

analogous in some respects to Sufi theosophy, this similarity
being a result of common contexts and mutual influence. The
language of devotion is one aspect where the influence is
apparent—in particular, where the element of religious
experience seeks to illuminate the apprehension by the
intellect and the soul of the Ḥaqīqah. It is poetry rather than
prose that captures best these moments of contemplation and
acts of awakening. This mode of expression is already present
in the qaṣīdah of Nāṣir-i Khusraw and is echoed also in the
gināns, as the examples below show. One is a description of
Nāṣir’s initiation and transformation, and the other evokes the

364
moments of bliss and illumination in the gināns, which can be
described only in terms of a “spiritual concert.”

That sage set his hand upon his heart

(a hundred blessings be on that hand and breast!)

and said, “I offer you the remedy

of proof and demonstration; but if you

accept, I shall place a seal upon your lips

which must never be broken.” I gave my consent and he

affixed the seal. Drop by drop and day

by day he fed me the healing potion, till

my ailment disappeared, my tongue became

imbued with eloquent speech; my face, which had

been pale as saffron now grew rosy with joy;

I who had been as stone was now a ruby;

I had been dust—now I was ambergris.

He put my hand into the Prophet’s hand,

I spoke the Oath beneath the exalted Tree

so heavy with fruit, so sweet with cooling shade.

Have you ever heard of a sea which flows from fire?

Have you ever seen a fox become a lion?

The sun can transmute a pebble, which even the hand

365
of Nature can never change, into a gem.

I am that precious stone, my Sun is he

by whose rays this tenebrous world is filled with light.

In jealousy I cannot speak his name

in this poem, but can only say that for him

Plato himself would become a slave. He

is the teacher, healer of souls, favoured of God,

image of wisdom, fountain of knowledge and Truth.

Blessed the ship with him for its anchor, blessed

the city whose sacred gate he ever guards!

O Countenance of Knowledge, Virtue’s Form,

Heart of Wisdom, Goal of Humankind,

O Pride of Pride; I stood before thee, pale

and skeletal, clad in a woolen cloak,

and kissed thine hand as if it were the grave

of the Prophet or Black Stone of the Kaaba.

Six years I served thee; and now, wherever I am

so long as I live I’ll use my pen and ink,

my inkwell and my paper . . . in praise of thee!20

When the unrecited name makes its abode in the interior

it becomes a lamp which illumines the heart;

366
the glories of true contemplation are felt within—

The world’s tinsel can no longer dazzle.

The flame lit by recitation

swallows all remembrance and devotion.

Truth hovers on the Master’s lip

because—as he says—“I am always on its side.”

The world is dazed by brightness

and turns away from the blazing glare.

If you were to reveal the mystery of this radiance

the world would brand you a fool.

“In the heart, I make my seat” says the Master

“all seventy-two chambers ring with music,

the dark of night is dispelled

and the concert of gināns begins.”

The unrecited name plays on and on:

a symphony is heard within.

The seventy-two chambers fill with music, though

its essence is perceived by only a few.21

Cosmos and History

Ismāʿīlī spirituality is ultimately rooted in two essentially

Islamic themes—a cosmos-mirroring “Unity” and a sacred
history reflecting the working out

367
of Divine Will and human destiny. These themes as illustrated
in the literature reveal a pattern in Ismāʿīlī thought where
human life is an exalted destiny whose movement in its
highest stage mirrors a return to its origin, as in the following
Quranic verse: “From Him we are and to Him we return” (II,
156).

However, this goal has as its context the material world,

where matter and spirit exist in a state of complementarity.
The ẓāhir which defines the world of matter is the arena in
which the context for a spiritual life is shaped. The essence of
Ismāʿīlī thought shows no propensity for rejecting this
material world; in fact, without action in it, the spiritual quest
is regarded as unworthy. It is in this juxtaposition of ẓāhir
with bāṭin, of the material with the spiritual, that the world of
the believer comes to be invested with full meaning. Such is
the continuing heritage that daily inspires Ismāʿīlī life and is
summed up in its most universal aspect, in the words that
conclude a memorable passage in the Memoirs of the
forty-eighth Nizārī Ismāʿīlī Imam, Shāh Sulṭān Muḥammad
Shāh, Agha Khan III:

Life in the ultimate analysis has taught me one enduring lesson. The subject
should always disappear in the object. In our ordinary affections one for
another, in our daily work with hand and brain, we most of us discover soon
enough that any lasting satisfaction, any contentment that we can achieve, is
the result of forgetting self, of merging subject with object, in a harmony that
is of body, mind and spirit. And in the highest realms of consciousness all
who believe in a Higher Being are liberated from all the clogging and
hampering bonds of the subjective self in prayer, in rapt meditation upon and
in the face of the glorious radiance of eternity, in which all temporal and
earthly consciousness is swallowed up and itself becomes the eternal.22

Notes

368
1. General summations of Ismāʿīlī history and more detailed
references to specialized works will be found in the
following: Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Ismāʿīliyya” (by W.
Madelung); Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v.
“Ismāʿīliyya” (by W. Ivanow); Aziz Esmail and Azim Nanji,
“The Ismāʿīlīs in History,” in Ismāʿīlī Contributions to
Islamic Culture, ed. S. H. Nasr (Tehran: Imperial Iranian
Academy of Philosophy, 1977) 225–65; S. Stern, Studies in
Early Ismaʿilism (Tel Aviv: Magnes Press, 1983).

2. For the Fāṭimids, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v.

“Fāṭimids” (by M. Canard); see also Abbas Hamdani, The
Fatimids (Karachi: Pakistan Publishing House, 1962).

3. For an overview of the early period, see S. M. Stern, “The

Succession to al-Āmir, the claims of the later Fatimids to the
imamate and the rise of Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlism,” Oriens 4 (1951)
193–255; and Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Bohōras” (by A.
A. Fyzee).

4. The most thoroughly researched study on the Nizārī

Ismāʿīlī movement is M. G. S. Hodgson, The Order of
Assassins (The Hague: Mouton, 1955). A summary of this
work appears in Hodgson, “The Ismāʿīlī State” in The
Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, ed. J. A. Boyle
(Cambridge: University Press, 1968) 422–82.

5. The most comprehensive survey of Ismāʿīlī literature is I.

K. Poonawala, Biobibliography of Ismāʿīlī Literature
(Malibu, CA: Undena, 1977).

6. Translated from the quotation in H. Corbin, Histoire de la

philosophie islamique (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) 17.

369
7. Quoted by Eugene Vance, “Pas de trois: Narrative,
Hermeneutics and Structure in Medieval Poetics,” in
Interpretation of Narrative, ed. M. J. Valdes and Owen Miller
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) 122.

8. Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Kitāb jāmiʿ al-Ḥikmatayn, edited with a

preliminary study in French and Persian by H. Corbin and M.
Moin (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1953).

9. See Heinz Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre derfrühen

Ismāʿīliya: Eine Studie zur islamischen Gnosis (Wiesbaden:
F. Steiner, 1978).

10. The analysis is drawn from Azim Nanji, “Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī

Interpretation of the Qurʾan,” in Selected Proceedings of the
International Congress for the Study of the Qurʾān,
Australian National University, 8–13 May 1980 (Canberra:
Australian National University Press, 1982) 40–42. For the
cosmology, see Halm, Kosmologie; and W. Madelung,
“Aspects of Ismāʿīlī Theology: The Prophetic Chain and the
God beyond Being,” in Ismāʿīlī Contributions, 51–65.

11. A. Nanji, “Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī Interpretation,” 42.

12. Reference to the account is made by W. Madelung,

“Ismāʿīliyya,” 204; see also B. Lewis, “An Ismaʿili
Interpretation of the Fall of Adam,” Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 9 (1938) 691–704.

13. The Book of Faith from the Daʿāʾim al-Islām of al-Qāḍī

al-Nuʿmān, trans. A. A. A. Fyzee (Bombay: Nachiketa
Publications, 1974) 6. A complete translation is to be
published soon by the Institute of Ismaʿili Studies in London.

370
14. See A. Nanji, “Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī Interpretation,” 43–46.

15. Quoted by H. Corbin, “Nasir-i-Khusrau and Iranian

Ismāʿīlism,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, ed. R.
N. Frye (Cambridge: University Press, 1975) 523.

16. For a description and analysis see H. Corbin, “Un roman

initiatique du Xe siècle,” in Cahiers de civilisation médievale
15 (April-June 1972) 1–25, 121–42.

17. For the literature and its background, see Azim Nanji, The
Nizārī Ismāʿīlī Tradition in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent
(New York: Caravan Books, 1978). The theme of
transformation is dealt with on pp. 101–10.

18. For his “conversion” and contribution to Ismāʿīlī

esoterics, see Corbin, “Nasir-i-Khusrau”; for his works, see
Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī Literature, 111–24. The relevant portion
of the qaṣīdah has been translated in Nasir-i-Khusraw: Forty
Poems from the Divan, trans. P. L. Wilson and G. R. Aavani
(Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977) 4–9.

19. H. Corbin, “Divine Epiphany and Spiritual Birth in

Ismāʿīlīsm Gnosis,” in Papers from Eranos Yearbooks
(Bollingen Series 30; New York: Pantheon Books, 1964)
5:71. Here, as elsewhere in this article, Corbin’s contribution
and influence in the interpretation of Ismāʿīlī spirituality will
be very evident. Some of his articles are to be made available
in English translation in the near future; also H. Corbin,
Cyclical Time and Ismāʿīlī Gnosis (London: Kegan Paul
International/Islamic Publications, 1983).

20. Nasir-i-Khusraw, Forty Poems from the Divan, 8–9.

371
21. The translation is part of a project on the gināns supported
by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
and is from a series of compositions entitled Śloka.

22. Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh, Agha Khan, The Memoirs of

Agha Khan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954) 335.

372
373
 11

Female Spirituality in Islam

SAADIA KHAWAR KHAN CHISHTI

IN SPEAKING OF FEMALE SPIRITUALITY in the context

of the Islamic tradition, one must turn not only to the
possibilities of the spiritual life for Muslim women but also to
those aspects of Islam which possess a feminine dimension.
One must consider the spiritual life of the great female saints,
from those who belonged to the household of the Prophet to
saintly women who have adorned every century of Islamic
history to this day. One must also study the spiritual aspect of
those everyday roles of women, which are sacralized by
virtue of being lived and practiced according to the Sharīʿah
and, therefore, in conformity with God’s Will. Likewise, one
must delve into Sufi teachings and practices as they apply to
women and as they provide concrete paths for spiritual
realization. Finally, it is necessary to recall the feminine
aspect of Islamic spirituality as such, as reflected in the
doctrines concerning the nature of God, the wedding of the
soul and the spirit, and the feminine symbolism employed in
discussing the nature of the Divine Essence and the human
being’s quest of the Divine Beloved. Throughout all these
discussions, one must also remember that female spirituality
in Islam partakes of the immutability and continuity that
characterize the Islamic tradition itself.

374
It is, in fact, miraculous that a period of fourteen centuries
with all its trials and confrontations could not break the
continuity in beliefs, thoughts, and actions between the
women who were blessed with the company of the Prophet
and led a spiritual life under his guidance (ṣaḥābiyyāt) in the
beginning of the Islamic era, and those Muslim women who,
in the succeeding centuries, followed in the spiritual footsteps
of their predecessors even during those recent periods in
Islamic history which have suffered from the gradual eclipse
of spirituality and the desacralization of knowledge. Such
women, adorned with spiritual virtues, live even now in the
dawn of the fifteenth century of the hijrah. They are inspired
by the illustrious lives of
their spiritual models and lead truly spiritual lives in
conformity with the tenets of Islam, despite the tendency of
present-day society toward desecration and forgetfulness of
God. Providentially, they in turn will inspire others to emulate
them in the quest for the Divine and to embark on the path
toward the One by identification with al-ḥaqīqat
al-muḥammadiyyah (the Muḥammadan Reality), which is the
fountainhead of Islamic spirituality. It is hoped that they will
become a viable force for spiritual vitality and progress by
combatting the opposing forces, which are on the increase in
this materialistic age.

Quranic Impact

Realizing the intensity of the current of change that runs

through the centuries, one wonders at this tangible continuity
among spiritual women in their modes of belief, thinking, and
behavior. Broadly speaking, this continuity is due—in this
case, as in all that is Islamic—to the powerful effect of the
teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet

375
Muḥammad. In other words, Muslim women who follow a
spiritual path continue to be alike for the definite reason that
their lives are guided by their love of God, which they express
according to the Quranic Revelation, with responses that are
conditioned by the teachings of the Prophet. Although the
crucial events recorded in the history of the world brought
along patterns of thinking and styles of living that were not
only radically different from those of Islam but even inimical
to them, the women who followed the teachings of the Quran,
like their Muslim counterparts, strove to model their behavior
on the example set by the Prophet, his companions, and his
household (ahl al-bayt). They thus continued to wear the
dress of faith in the Unity and Oneness of God and to
proclaim Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh (There is no divinity but Allah).
Their adornment consists in the remembrance of God, and
through the travail of spiritual discipline they cultivate virtues
such as patience, repentance, humility, charity, chastity,
truthfulness, piety, and absolute dependence on God
(tawakkul). In a spirit of love and devotion, they reach a
maqām (state) wherein they experience submission to the
Divine Will.1 Consequently, through the grace of God, in this
way they begin to partake of His Divine Attributes. In so
doing they are following the Prophet’s command to the
faithful, “Acquire Attributes of Allah.” “Know that the
Named is One and the Names a hundred thousand, that Being
is One but its aspects are a hundred thousand.”2 “Thy great
and sacred Names are a proof of Thy bounty and beneficence
and mercy. Each One of them is greater than heaven and earth
and angel. They
are a thousand and one and they are ninety-nine: each one of
them is related to one of man’s needs.”3

Proximity to the Divine

376
Once the seeker is able to translate the acquired spiritual
virtues into action, the door of spiritual realization opens wide
and the seeker crosses the threshold of gnosis—spiritual
realization or proximity to the Divine. The beautiful truth is
that God (as mentioned in the Quran and Ḥadīth) is ever close
to those (men and women) who seek Him. But those who fail
to acknowledge that He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and
omniscient, knowing and seeing all that they do, remain
distant from Him. The very light of God is needed to perceive
one’s proximity to the Divine. Shabistarī’s idea of proximity
is expressed in the following way:

In a moment this world passes away,

None remains in the world save “The Truth,”

At that moment you attain proximity

You stripped of “self” are “united” to the Beloved.4

God’s magnanimous response to those who seek His

forgiveness and His majestic Presence is expressed in the
following ḥadīth:

He who approaches near to Me one span, I will approach to him one cubit:
and he who approaches near to Me one cubit, I will approach near to him one
fathom, and whoever approaches Me walking, I will come to him running,
and he who meets Me with sins equivalent to the whole world, I will greet
him with forgiveness equal to it.5

In this ḥadīth reference is to both men and women, and

women share with men the magnanimous response of God to
their spiritual effort.

God’s Slaves

377
One of the features of spirituality in Islam is that, whereas the
genuine lover is granted spiritual proximity to the Beloved,
the man and woman as a human pair are created to function as
the Creator’s vicegerents on earth (II, 30); as seekers of the
Divine, they always remain slaves (al-ʿabd). The Quran
testifies to the primordial covenant between God and man
(used here in the sense of both male and female) as mentioned
in the verse “Am I not your Lord?” asked God of His slaves.
They said, “Indeed Thou art” (VII, 172). The implication is
that the bondage of the Master and the slave is not destined to
be severed. As such, under all circumstances the seeker or the
lover of God remains a slave. However, the slaves’ spiritual
progress,
by way of attaining the Attributes of the Master, makes the
slave worthy of the Master’s choicest gifts. Once the slave
reaches the spiritual maqām of having attained some of the
Master’s Attributes to a degree humanly possible, then the
Master favors the slave with His friendship and qurb, or
closeness. Nevertheless, the fact is that even those who attain
the heights of spiritual realization always remain the Master’s
slaves. “There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh
unto the Beneficent as a slave” (XIX, 93), for “He is Allah the
One! And there is none comparable to Him” (CXII, 1–4).
However, the slaves of God are given the glad tidings in the
verse or āyah: “Gardens of Eden which the Beneficent hath
promised to His slaves, the gardens which are (at present)
unseen; surely His promise must come to pass” (XIX, 61).
Thus, God assigns to His slaves a high and true renown both
in this world and in the hereafter. Gardens of Eden are
promised by God to both men and women in return for
recognizing His perfect Unity and following the straight path.
A slave who passed through the hardships of the spiritual path

378
and experienced the Master’s Unity expressed it in the
following words:

He perfect is alone, and glorious for evermore,

His Unity supreme above imagining,

His wondrous work beyond analysis.

I do not say, He is the soul’s soul: whatso’er I

say, that He transcends, for He is free of space,

and may not be attained by swiftest thought or

further sense.

If thou wouldst serve the Friend, and win His

grace, He is thine eye, thine ear, thy tongue, thy brain:

And since through Him thou speakest, and through

Him hearest, before His Being thou art naught;

for so, when shines the sun’s own radiance,

the light of stars is darkened.6

The attainment of gnosis, or maʿrifah, is largely dependent

upon the spiritual capability, effort upon the path, and the
extent and intensity with which the male or female seeker is
blessed with the barakah7 that results from the absorption of
the teachings of the Quranic Revelation as exemplified by the
Prophet, his family, and his companions. In the words of Abū
Sulaymān al-Dārānī, the celebrated Sufi, “If Gnosis (maʿrifa)
were to take visible form, all that looked thereon would die at
the sight of its beauty and loveliness and goodness and grace

379
and every brightness would become dark beside the splendour
thereof.”8 Now this gnosis is a possibility for women as well
as for men, and the barakah that makes it possible is available
even
in a mode of life rooted in the social and family
responsibilities which are those of women according to the
Sharīʿah.

The exemplary lives of the noble women of the Prophet’s

household and of their physical and spiritual descendants
echo the message contained in many verses (āyāt) of the
Quran and corresponding ḥadīths to the effect that a Muslim
woman’s religious duties lie in keeping an orderly home
which breathes tranquillity amid both the plenty and the
scarcity of the necessities of life. If she is married, then she
must aim to raise her family in accordance with the Sharīʿah
of Islam. If she is unmarried, divorced, or a widow, as a
member of her parents’ family, she is expected to share the
heavy burden of maintaining a household under the
supervision of her parents or the elderly members of her
family while seeking the pleasure of God, both in this world
and in the hereafter. When a Muslim woman realizes that the
sign of the lover of God is that she follows the “Beloved of
Allah,”9 she then follows the Sharīʿah in her daily life as a
member of her family in particular and of the society in
general. Her sincere attempt to follow the Sharīʿah in its
exoteric aspects leads to the lifting of the veils and introduces
her to the inner or the esoteric aspects of the Divine Law, the
assiduous observance of which leads one to the path of
maʿrifah.

Women and Family

380
There are those who have criticized the injunctions of the
Sharīʿah concerning women and the role of women in general
in Islam. Such people do not usually understand either the
rights bestowed upon women in Islam or the situation of
women in religious communities other than the Islamic. The
discussion of women’s rights, however, is not of concern to
the present essay, which aims to discuss female spirituality.
Suffice it to say that the Prophet conferred on women a
dignified status commensurable with their feminine role and
responsibilities. Most important of all, the vistas of spiritual
growth and development were fully opened to the female sex.
As a result, in the context of Islamic spirituality, once a
woman strives in the spiritual life she is able to gain access to
all the possibilities of the Islamic tradition and to become,
like man, the vicegerent of God (khalīfat Allāh) on earth.

Although the Quran is addressed to all of humanity, it also

addresses women specifically. In addition to Sūrat al-nisāʾ
(women), there are numerous āyāt scattered throughout the
various suras which refer to women’s status, rights, and
responsibilities. Thus, the first āyah in Sūrat al-nisāʾ:

O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a
single soul, created, of like nature, His mate and from them twain, scattered
(like seeds) countless men and women. Reverence Allah, through Whom Ye
demand your mutual (rights) and reverence the Wombs (that bore you) for
Allah ever watches over you. (IV, 1)

It may be noted here that the male and the female in their
relation with the metacosmic Reality are equal. But on the
cosmic level, which means the biological, psychological, and
social levels, their roles are complementary; in Islam, the
roles of men and women are complementary rather than
competitive. In any case, before God they stand as equals, but

381
both men and women can approach the Divine only by
remaining faithful to their respective forms created by the
Creator and to the duties assigned to them by Him as their
Master.10

The demand to be dutiful toward the Creator and toward

women as mothers in the same āyah is an indicator of the
honor bestowed on motherhood and Islam’s recognition of the
rights of a female in her spiritual role as a mother. There are
several well-known ḥadīths that either state or imply that
motherhood spent in accordance with the Sharīʿah is one of
the expressions of the spiritual role of a female. The Quran
and the Sunnah emphasize that the mother deserves
reverence, service, and loving care; disobedience to her or
deprivation of her needs or rights is severely condemned, and
the children are counseled that “heaven lies at the feet of
mothers.”

In the context of Islamic spirituality, observance of the Divine

Law enables the body as the abode of the soul to play a
positive role in the very process of spiritual realization. The
Creator’s miracle of human creation takes place in the womb
of the mother—hence the veneration and tenderness shown to
an expectant mother. Esoterically, the very process of
pregnancy and birth is a part of the Divine Command “Be!
and it is” (III, 47). The Quranic description of the Virgin
Mary, mother of Jesus, led the Muslims to hold Mary as the
symbol of the spirit that receives the Divine Inspiration and
becomes the model of purity and the spiritual characteristics
of motherhood. The mother bears the “soul to come” in her
womb from the moment of conceiving and passes through the
succeeding stages, which are described in the Quran in these
terms:

382
Verily We created man from a product of wet earth; then placed him as a
drop (of seed) in a safe lodging; then fashioned We the drop a clot, then
fashioned We the clot a little lump, then fashioned We the little lump bones,
then clothed the bones with flesh, and then produced it as another creation.
So blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators! (XXIII, 12–14)

It is an instinctive part of a female’s spiritual role to provide

for the needs of her offspring, for the newborn’s nourishment
is a symbol of Divine Providence. It is a living testimony of
God’s Attributes as the Provider or
Sustainer that the nourishment for the baby comes from the
mother’s breasts in the form needed by the baby’s digestive
system for the normal growth and development of the body.
In other words, the mother (human as well as the animal)
functions as a means for Divine Provision for creatures of the
Creator.

Moreover, a spiritual mother nurtures the soul of her child

with the powerful effect of the recitation of the Shahādah, the
oft-repeated prayer (Sūrat al-fāṭiḥah), and the beautiful
Names or Attributes of God by singing them as a lullaby for
putting the child to sleep or for comforting a wailing or a
disturbed child. In doing so, the mother makes her
contribution in permeating the very being of the child with the
most powerful words of the Quran.

If the mother performs her spiritual role with a sincere

intention to please God (to Whom she belongs and to Whom
is her return according to the Quran), then the raḥmah of God
descends on her and she herself attains proximity to the
Divine.11 Histories of the lives of spiritual adepts or saints
frequently reveal that their mothers played a vital role in
leading them toward the spiritual path. To cite an example:
Sulṭān Bāhū, who is renowned for his spirituality, often

383
mentioned his mother with the utmost reverence and firmly
believed that his spiritual attainment was solely due to the
efforts of his mother, who was a deeply spiritual person. It is
interesting to note that he composed verses with a pun on his
mother’s name Rāstī, which means “truth.” Al-Ḥaqq is one of
the Names of God, meaning “the Truth.” Sulṭān Bāhū said in
Persian:

Raḥmat-i Ḥaqq bā rāwān-i rāstī

Rāstī az rāstī ārāstī

May the beneficence of the Truth flow on the being of truth for I am
bedecked by this truth through the Truth.12

In simple words, the spiritual master attributed his spirituality

to his mother.

As for the role of the Muslim wife, it overlaps the role of the
mother. In the Prophet’s first wife, Khadījah, the Muslim wife
finds her best example. Khadījah enjoys the unique honor of
being the first person to accept the testimony of the faith of
Islam and to witness the truth of the Oneness of God and the
prophethood of Muḥammad, whom she married for his
honesty, integrity, and acumen as a trader. She is known for
her untold sacrifices in order to spread the message of Islam,
while maintaining a household, serving her husband, and
rearing her family in accordance with the tenets of Islam—as
these were being received by her prophet-husband
in the form of āyāt of the Holy Book. In this context, Ibn
Hishām says, “So Khadījah believed and attested to the truth
which came from Allah. Thus was Allah minded to lighten
the burden of His Prophet: Whenever he heard something that
grieved him, touching his rejection by the people, he had

384
recourse unto her and she comforted, reassured and supported
him.”13 Thus, the first umm al-muʾminīn (mother of the
faithful) laid the foundations of Islamic spirituality and family
life.14

The Mothers of the Faithful as Models

It befits a Muslim woman to take example from the mothers

of the faithful, for each one of them excelled in one or another
aspect of family life and contributed to the fulfillment of the
Prophet’s mission. The name of ʿĀʾishah is particularly
important; it was in her arms that the Prophet died and in her
company that he received revelations. She served her husband
as his beloved wife. She entered the Prophet’s household as a
little girl with her toys but was destined to acquire that
wisdom which serves as an instrument for attaining spiritual
perfection and thereby delivers its possessor from human
limitations.

ʿĀʾishah, the learned mother of the believers, lived through

the rules of the four rightly guided caliphs of Islam and wove
the sapiential dimension into the fabric of their reigns. Her
most intimate closeness with the Prophet as his wife makes
her an inseparable part of him. She survived her
prophet-husband for nearly half a century and guided the
faithful with her Divine Knowledge. It is recorded that she
narrated 2,210 ḥadīths of the Prophet, who is reported to have
said, “Learn two thirds of religion from ʿĀʾishah.” Her
narrations about the Prophet have provided the Muslims with
a vivid picture of the personality of the perfect man par
excellence. The Prophet’s sayings about the importance of
spiritual practices, such as night vigils, and the constant
remembrance of God in various forms have been transmitted

385
to the Muslims through her. She served as an authentic source
of information and knowledge of the Prophet’s personal and
private life. She seemed to have observed the Prophet with
every breath of her life in a spirit of unflinching loyalty and
oneness with his inner self; for she related, “when his eyes
slept, his heart did not sleep.”

A study of the Prophet’s ḥadīths pertaining to family life

reveals that Islam resolved the conflict between “spirit” and
“flesh” by encouraging marriage. Sex finds an enjoyable
expression in the bonds of lawful marriage for perpetuating
the progeny of Adam and Eve, who were created for fulfilling
the obligations and duties of the exalted office of the
Creator’s vicegerency
(II, 30–33). “On Earth the human pairs have affinity through
their Vicegerency for God and they are complementary
through being man and woman. The harmony of the Universe
depends on analogous sameness and differences not only
between individuals, but also between worlds.”15

The Relationship of the Family to God

In Islam, life in general—and the family life in particular in

all its aspects—is an indivisible unity in which the spiritual is
not separate from the mundane. The religion of Islam is a
definite and distinct way of life based on the Sharīʿah or laws
as revealed to the Prophet. As such, religion is intended to
find expression in family life in particular and in the affairs of
Muslim people in general. Besides the relationships between
husband and wife, children and parents, grandparents and
other members of the larger family circle, on the one hand,
and the relationship of one family to another as units of the
Islamic ummah, on the other hand, the central feature of the

386
family in Islam is its relationship with God. Raising one’s
family according to His commandments and preparing it to be
of service to Islam with an awareness that “to God we belong
and to Him is our return” (II, 156) is seen as a necessity. It is
this relationship between the family and God that makes the
family spiritual in its structure and functions. The family that
corresponds to this description and serves as the best model
for a truly spiritual life is the family of Sayyidah Fāṭimah, the
epitome of Islamic spiritual life.

Fāṭimah, also called Khayr nisāʾ al-ʿalamīn (the best of

women in all the worlds), was the blessed daughter of the
Prophet of Islam who became the wife of ʿAlī. She was
declared by the Prophet as one who served as the gate to the
citadel of spiritual knowledge. She was the mother of Imam
Ḥasan and Imam Ḥusayn, who both won the coveted crown
of martyrdom. She was also the mother of Zaynab, who was
the spiritual heroine of the battle of Karbalāʾ and who played
the role of a veritable princess of female spirituality in Islam.

Although fourteen centuries have elapsed since her departure

from this stage of life, Sayyidah Fāṭimah and her family are
continually remembered both in the prose and in the poetry of
Muslims throughout the world. The Muslims unanimously
recognize her as the fountainhead of female spirituality in
Islam, because she occupied herself with the purity of the
Oneness and Unity of God and was confirmed in her absolute
sincerity in the practice of the beliefs and tenets of Islam. She
succeeded in attaining the state (maqām) in which the pristine
purity of the spirit immersed in the Oneness of the Supreme
Being enabled her to give up the body and reside in the world
of Divine Beauty and Majesty. It was her destiny, however,

387
to set the pattern for posterity by expressing her spirituality of
the highest order through her role as a daughter, wife, and
mother. While performing these roles, Fāṭimah lived in and
through God. In her Prophet-father’s blessed self and
teachings, she saw God; in her saint-husband’s personality,
she saw God; and she brought up her children to serve God.
They in turn sacrificed themselves at the altar of love for God
and thereby revived His spiritual message.

Female Spirituality and the Styles of Life

Instead of citing extensively the lives of the women closest to

the Prophet, an attempt is made here to exercise restraint in
giving examples of models par excellence of Islamic
spirituality, such as Fāṭimah. The rationale behind such
caution is based on the fact that, despite deep reverence and
love for such models of spirituality, one finds among the
Westernized young women of the present generation a
growing tendency to ignore the examples of these luminaries
on the horizon of spirituality. They argue that these great
personalities had the unparalleled advantage of being blessed
by the company and the teachings of the Prophet. Therefore,
care is taken to cite examples in the lives of those spiritually
advanced women who could not be in the company of the
Prophet and yet strove to know and follow his teachings with
utmost devotion and who became well known for their
spiritual attainment.

It is not a rare sight to find small huts presenting a contrast to

the lofty and luxurious mansions found in the Islamic world.
A particularly striking contrast in styles of living was
presented by the hut of Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyyah, which stood
near the Tigris, and the palace of Zubaydah, the queen of

388
Hārūn al-Rashīd of the Abbasid Dynasty. Although Rābiʿah
has always worn the spiritual crown of the servant of God and
is well known as the queen of saintly women, Zubaydah,
queen of Baghdad, was spiritually gifted in her own regal
demeanor. The historians describe her as the most desirous of
the good, the swiftest to perform pious deeds, and the readiest
in benefactions. In discussing the piety and virtues of
Zubaydah, on the one hand, and describing Rābiʿah’s pure
love for God and her complete absorption in Him, on the
other hand, an attempt is made here to show that although
spirituality may be expressed by individuals who are poles
apart in their personal bearing and stations in life, the core of
the concept of feminine spirituality in Islam, its mode of
discipline, and its goal are always the same. However, the
maqām of persons on the spiritual path differs from person to
person, depending on the intensity of their efforts
(mujāhadah) and the descent of God’s grace upon them. In
the case of Zubaydah it is clear that, while outwardly wearing
the robes of a queen, she inwardly passed through many
spiritual states and stations, which alone could give her the
patience to be a loving wife of a king who was known for his
attraction to women. She had the virtue to extend her
motherly love to an infant whose deceased mother was a slave
girl of her palace. This infant, Maʾmūn, became a claimant to
the throne and thus a rival of Zubaydah’s only son, Amīn.
Later, when Maʾmūn was at war with Amīn for the throne,
Zubaydah had the strength of heart to rise above her motherly
love for her own son and to behave like a perfectly just
queen-mother, as evidenced by the fact that she advised her
general to remember while confronting Maʾmūn that he was a
son and a brother and must be treated kindly. Although
Maʾmūn was held responsible for the death of Zubaydah’s
only son, she refused to take revenge. In doing so she

389
followed the patient statesmanship of the Prophet, who, after
the conquest of Mecca, did away with blood feuds and later,
in his sermon of the last pilgrimage, banished acts of revenge
as an evil of the past. In the manner of a truly spiritually
oriented person, Zubaydah said to Maʾmūn, “If I lost a son
who was caliph, I now have a son who is caliph. No mother is
bereft who holds you by the hand. There is a day when you
two will meet again, and I pray God that He will forgive both
of you.” “Her magnanimity may have contributed to
Baghdad’s recovery and to the brilliance of the reign of
al-Maʾmūn.”16

Zubaydah’s life was a shining example of female spirituality

in Islam, for she was graceful in practicing the Sunnah of the
Prophet in dealing with the affairs of her palace, amid
melodious recitations of the Quran by one hundred girls who
had memorized the Holy Book and recited three sipārahs
daily. (A sipārah constitutes l/30th of the Quran.) In addition,
inspired by the love of God and His Messenger, she crossed
the pilgrims’ road to Mecca six times during her life,
founding inns, wells, cisterns, and the like to make the
journey comfortable for pilgrims. It is she who had the depth
of the Zamzam, the sacred well in the sanctuary of the
Kaʿbah, increased. It is reckoned by the early historians that
“the people of Mecca owe their very life to her, next to God.”
The echo of the slogan, “Allah bless Zubaydah” resounded
for many centuries and testified to her spirituality.

Zubaydah’s palace and its adornments would tend to blind the

person unacquainted with spiritual states and stations to the
jewel of spirituality and its light which shone within it. To the
same person, Rābiʿah’s hut would appear as a dwelling place
of a poverty-stricken, illiterate, and perhaps eccentric

390
individual. To the person whose eyes see the inner meaning
of things, however, Rābiʿah’s hut symbolized faqr or spiritual
poverty,
which served as a center of barakah (Divine Grace). The
genuine faqīrah (woman who practices faqr) is a servant of
God alone and desires to be possessionless in order to be
possessed only by her love for God. In this voluntary state of
material possessionlessness, the servant who is a genuine
lover begins her life of service to the Beloved with the aim of
reaching the final station on the spiritual path, known as
Ḥaqīqah (the Truth). Her service is based on pursuing
diligently the Master’s Divine Commandments, both in their
exoteric and esoteric aspects.

The servant’s devoted service to the One, coupled with an

intense longing for the Master’s majestic presence, leads to
the development of a close relationship between the two,
whereby the servant begins to hear with the ears of the Master
and to see with His eyes. It is at this juncture that the
servant’s hut becomes the treasure-house of spiritual wisdom,
blessings, and the choicest gifts of the Master, wherein many
seekers find the true meaning of faqr and start their journey
on the spiritual path.

The perplexing question of how a hut that generally

symbolizes poverty can serve as a treasure-house of spiritual
wisdom and gifts can be answered by citing an episode from
Rābiʿah’s life. If the truth of this incident is doubted, the story
is still able to serve as an allegory. Once a thief entered
Rābiʿah’s hut and found nothing save a pitcher of water. As
he was about to leave, Rābiʿah called out to him, “If you are
really a thief then do not leave without taking something.”
The thief replied sarcastically, “What is there to be taken?”

391
Rābiʿah replied, “O needy one, perform the ablution with the
water in the pitcher, enter this prayer room, and say two
rakats of prayer. Then leave after receiving something.” The
thief obeyed and, when he stood for the prayer, Rābiʿah also
raised her hands for prayer and said, “O Lord, this man found
nothing here, I have brought him to Thy door, bless him by
Thy bounty and grace.” In response to Rābiʿah’s appeal to the
Hearer of prayers, the thief felt spiritual absorption and joy
and thus continued his prayers throughout the night. Early in
the morning when Rābiʿah entered the prayer room, she found
him prostrate before the Almighty and heard him seeking
repentance. This much of the incident should suffice to
answer the question, How could a hut serve as a
treasure-house of wisdom and God’s Mercy.

Selfless service performed from the depths of love keeps the

lover ready to lay down her life in order to earn the pleasure
of the Beloved and develops in her an intense longing for that
supreme moment when she will hear the Beloved’s voice
saying, “O soul at rest, return to thy Lord well-pleased,
well-pleasing; so enter amongst My servants and enter My
Garden” (LXXXIX, 27–30).

The biographers of Rābiʿah have recorded that the last words

she spoke as she was closing her eyes in death showed her to
be in a state of eternal bliss in the lap of her Beloved. Indeed
Rābiʿah was one of those about whom the Quran says: “But
those of Faith are overflowing in their love for God” (II, 165).
Thus, Rābiʿah, the absolutely true lover, passed into the
presence of her Beloved.

Rābiʿah, a model of selfless love, introduced the concept of

love into the somewhat austere teachings of her ascetic

392
predecessors. Rābiʿah dressed her yearnings of love in
exquisitely beautiful verses. An example of her concept of
Divine Love is the following stanza:

I love Thee with two loves, a love that is passion

And one which besides Thou hast earned as Thy due

The passionate love is the thought which forgetting

All else is of You, aye, for ever of You.

Thou earnedst the other by rending asunder

All veils and disclosing Thyself to my view.

Not mine be the praise for the one or the other

The praise and the thanks are all Thine for the two.17

Rābiʿah’s life was a model of mutual love between the

Creator and His creation—a state of perfect love in which the
lover ceases to exist for her own person but lives for the
Beloved, demonstrates invariable courtesy and efficient
service in obeying the commandments of the Beloved, and
finally becomes altogether His. Rābiʿah’s life is a supreme
example of the spiritual state in which lover, love, and
Beloved become one.

Women and the Way of Sufism

Divine Union and the Sharīʿah

In Islam, union with the Divine is contingent upon love for

the Prophet, who is the last of the spiritual monarchs ruling
over the earth. In this respect, the Quranic mandate is as

393
follows: “Say (O Muḥammad, to mankind) if ye love God,
follow me: God will love you and forgive you your sins. God
is forgiving, Merciful” (III, 31). It is noteworthy that this
āyah addresses itself to the entirety of mankind, and its
profound implication is that it applies to posterity till that Last
Day in the existence of this world, when, according to the
Quran, the heavens and the earth will be rolled up and God
(aḥkam al-ḥākimīn, the justest of judges) will sit on the
Throne of judgment for the announcement of the final reward
or punishment to each male and female created by Him. The
words “follow me” in the āyah refer to following the Kitāb
and the Sunnah. Furthermore, these words are
addressed as much to posterity as to the followers of the
Prophet during his lifetime. The exemplification of the
Sharīʿah by the Prophet, his household (ahl al-bayt), and
companions for attaining the love of God have made it
mandatory for the seekers of the Divine to follow the Sunnah.

Since, in their union with the Divine, distinctions are not

made among the lovers of God, it follows that no distinction
can be made between Muslim men and women in their
capacity and longing to reach the Divine. It must be pointed
out that the Quran admonishes the seekers of the Divine, both
male and female, to love the Prophet as a prerequisite for
loving God. No one can claim to love the Prophet unless he or
she recognizes that the Sharīʿah, in its exoteric reality as well
as its esoteric aspects, furnishes a perfect code of life and that
it has been given to humanity in order for us to strive to live a
perfect life in this world with the aim of passing into the
presence of the perfect Being. Perfection, however, can be
achieved only when one remains faithful to the innate nature
of the form, male or female, in which the perfect Being has
placed the soul. It may be emphasized here that, whenever

394
individuals rebel against forms and their corresponding roles,
they fall from the pedestal of perfection and the possibility of
attaining the spiritual realm.

Although both the male and the female are assigned different
roles by nature, in Islam the roles of men and women are seen
as complementary rather than competitive. As human souls,
both the male and the female are absolutely equal in their
relationship with their Creator; and as Muslims both the male
and the female need to cultivate the same virtues and perform
the same Islamic rites, and before God they bear the same
accountability for their actions.

Islamic rites and rituals are basically the same for both men
and women. Performance of the rites may differ in minor
details for women because of their different role; for example,
the woman may not join the congregational Friday prayers
held in the mosque but can perform the prayer at home. She
may not join the funeral procession, and she is not supposed
to take part in the burial rites. She is also exempted from
saying the five prayers during menstruation and childbirth.
The reasons for her exemptions are obvious. Islam is known
as Dīn al-fiṭrah (a way of life according to the nature of the
male and female) and Dīn al-sahl (a way of life in which
there is ease). As such, the performance of the religious rites
and ceremonies is based on the consideration of offering ease
to the performer, which enables women to perform their own
role efficiently.

The undeniable additional evidence of the spiritual equality of

the Muslim male and female is furnished by the Quranic
mode of addressing both men and women as follows:

395
Men who surrender unto Allah,

And women who surrender,

And men who believe,

And women who believe,

And men who speak the truth

And women who speak the truth,

And men who persevere in righteousness,

And women who persevere,

And men who are humble,

And women who are humble,

And men who give alms,

And women who give alms,

And men who fast,

And women who fast,

And men who guard their modesty,

And women who guard their modesty,

And men who remember Allah much,

And women who remember Allah much,

Allah hath prepared for them forgiveness

and a vast reward.

(XXXIII, 33–35)

396
About the men and the women mentioned in the above āyah,
the Quran provides further knowledge in these words:

The Believers, men and women are protecting friends of one another; they
enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they observe regular prayers, and
they pay the poor due and they obey God and His messenger. (IX, 71)

These verses not only bring out the spiritual equality of the
believers, men and women, but also describe most exquisitely
those spiritual virtues whose cultivation is necessary for
attaining the greatest spiritual reward.

Keeping in mind the various verses concerning the believers,

both men and women, and their obligation to observe the
Divine Law, Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥasanī presented the ideas
expressed in those verses as follows:

Praise be to God, who created the earth and the heavens . . .and gathered
together the believers, men and women, and established the sacred law. . . .
And the people of happiness obeyed Him and did His work, from among the
dutiful men and women. . . . And when He exhorted the creatures to be
obedient, He did not single out the men, but spoke of the Muslims, men and
women, and the believers of both sexes and those who observed the law, men
and women, and the verses dealing with this are many and are not secret.18

Ḥasanī’s views emphasize the fact that Islam has once and for
all made a declaration of the spiritual equality of the male and
the female before their Creator, who exhorts them “to be
obedient to Him and His Messenger”
(V, 92). Furthermore, the Quran proclaims: “Say, obey Allah
and the Messenger. But if they turn back, Allah loves not
those who reject Faith” (III, 32). This āyah is also clearly
addressed to all of the human race and brings out
characteristics of human nature common to both the sexes.
Hence, it is implied that both the male and the female as

397
human beings share the same basic traits of human
nature—the tendency both to do good and to indulge in evil.
As such, on the one hand, they are given the choice of
choosing the right path (al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm) and thereby
nurturing and developing their souls. On the other hand, if
they choose the path of evil, their souls are starved and
ultimately perish. These two categories of the males and the
females are perfectly contrasted in the following verses.

Concerning those who incur God’s wrath:

The hypocrites, men and women, (have an understanding) with each other:

They enjoin evil, and forbid what is just, and are close with their hands.

They have forgotten Allah; so He hath disregarded them.

Verily the hypocrites are rebellious and perverse. (IX, 67)

Concerning those who incur God’s mercy:

The believers, men and women are protectors, one of another:

They enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular
prayers, practice regular charity,

and obey Allah and His Apostle.

On them will Allah pour His mercy; for Allah

is exalted in power, wise. (IX, 71)

Since in Islam there is no clergy or ecclesiastical system,

every man and woman is recognized as having the potential to
practice Islam directly as the perfect religion chosen to
complete God’s blessing on mankind. “This day have I
perfected your religion for you and completed My favour

398
upon you, and chosen for you Islam as your religion” (V, 3).
Therefore, the first step for either the male or the female
belonging to the category that incurs God’s wrath is to repent
and to seek God’s forgiveness and thereby take the initial step
toward following the exoteric aspects of Sharīʿah.

If a woman regularly follows the beliefs and the five pillars of

Islam in her daily life and if their practice becomes second
nature to her, then the barakah inherent in practicing the
Sharīʿah will enable her to enter into the esoteric or the inner
dimensions of the Divine Laws. Such a woman is already at
the starting point of the spiritual path, whether she lives in a
hut, in an average house, or in a palace—or, if need arises,
moves in and out of these during her lifetime. In any case,
such a woman follows the dictate in these verses:

Guard strictly your (habit of) prayers and stand before God in a devout
(frame of mind). (II, 238)

Celebrate the praises of the Lord ere the rising of the sun and ere the going
down thereof. And glorify Him some hours of the night and at the two ends
of the day, that thou mayest find acceptance. (XX, 130)

The first verse alludes to the five canonical prayers and the
second to the dhikr, remembrance of God along with prayers.
It is noteworthy that a sincere obedience to the
commandments contained in the verses eventually raises the
follower from the level of obedience to that of pure love for
the Divine and whispers to her the spiritual message of
taṣawwuf, confirming to her that love (ʿishq-i ilāhī) is the
instrument for taking the lover (ʿāshiq) into the close
proximity of the Beloved (Maʿshūq). It thereby enables her to
attain maʿrifah (Divine Knowledge).

399
Sharīʿah, Ṭarīqah, Ḥaqīqah

Islam as a religion consists of an essential outward, an

irreplaceable exoteric, dimension known as the Sharīʿah.
More often than not, those persons who are assiduous in
following the Sharīʿah are seen as being led to the ṭarīqah
(the path of taṣawwuf or Sufism). For the few successful
travelers on the path, the grace of God terminates their
journey at the exalted station of Ḥaqīqah (Divine Truth). An
unshakable belief in Divine Unity (tawḥīd) is the cornerstone
of the structure of spirituality in Islam. Therefore, those
persons who devoted themselves to the spiritual life came to
be called ahl-i tawḥīd (people of Unity) or ahl-i ḥaqq (people
of Truth, i.e., of God).

Taṣawwuf (Islamic mysticism) is appropriately called the

“science of purity” of the human soul, and those who adhere
to it live a purely virtuous life based on the Sharīʿah. The
Sharīʿah and ṭarīqah are both expressions of taṣawwuf, like
the reverse sides of a coin. These two aspects of taṣawwuf as
a discipline are aimed at providing the means of union with
the Divine. Both the male and the female go through the
special discipline provided by taṣawwuf and delineated by the
renowned masters of the Islamic spiritual orders, who have
provided guidance ever since the physical departure of the
embodiment of Islamic spirituality, namely, the Prophet of
Islam and his companions.19

The Ṭarīqah and Its Discipline

The female seeker of the Divine, like her male counterpart,

begins her spiritual training by receiving initiation from a
living spiritual master (male

400
or female). Then, under the vigilant eye of her spiritual
teacher, she goes through the process of self-purification
(tazkiyat al-nafs). The Quran mentions that one of the
functions of the Prophet consisted in purifying his followers
and teaching them the scriptures and the wisdom contained in
God’s Revelation (III, 164; LXII, 2).

One of the individual and group practices that plays a crucial

role in bringing about an inner transformation by way of
linking the heart with the Divine is dhikr, or remembrance of
God. This practice is as available to women as it is to men.
The Quran mentions the significance of dhikr both directly
and indirectly in verses scattered throughout the Book, one of
which is the following: “Verily in the remembrance of Allah
do hearts find rest” (XIII, 28).

The significance of dhikr is also described in many ḥadīths.

According to one of these, the best dhikr is Lā ilāha illaʿLlāh
(there is no divinity but Allah), and the best prayer is the
Sūrat al-fātiḥah, the opening chapter of the Quran. Another
ḥadīth suggesting the momentous practice of dhikr may be
translated as follows: “When My slave remembers Me quietly
in isolation, I too remember him quietly in My own Being.
But when he remembers Me in a group, then I remember him
in a better group.”

In describing the essence of dhikr, we must state that through

dhikr both the male and female seekers of the Divine sow the
seed of Truth (ḥaqq) in their minds, of perfection (kamāl) in
their hearts, of vision (kashf) in their eyes, and in their very
selves an unshakable belief in the Unity and Oneness of their
Lord, through which they reap the fruits of everlasting life
and proximity to the Divine. In fact, success in this life and in

401
the hereafter is dependent on realizing the Truth and attaining
perfection. The Quran gives glad tidings to those who
remember God: “And men and women who remember Allah
much—Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a vast
reward” (XXXIII, 35).20

This spiritual discipline is aimed at changing the insinuating

self (al-nafs al-ammārah) to the state of self at peace (al-nafs
al-mu[i_ṭ]maʾnnah) (LXXXIX, 27). The characteristic of the
self at peace is that it merges into the Divine Will and attains
maʿrifah or reaches the station of Ḥaqīqah, where the lover
experiences the unveiling of the vision of the Beloved. In that
sublime moment, the lover experiences the passing away of
the personal self (fanāʾ) and entrance into eternal life (baqāʾ),
into the Unity of the One Being.

The Position of the Woman Saint

A study of the history of Sufism reveals that the dignity of

sainthood is conferred on Muslim women as well as on men.
“As far as rank among the
‘friends of God’ was concerned, there was complete equality
between the sexes.”21 The goal of the spiritual quest being
union with the Divine, it leaves no room for the distinctions
of sex.

So the title of saint was bestowed upon women equally with men, and since
Islam has no order of priesthood and no priestly caste, there was nothing to
prevent a woman from reaching the highest religious rank in the hierarchy of
Muslim saints. Some theologians even name the Lady Fāṭimah, daughter of
the Prophet, as the first “quṭb” or spiritual head of the Sufi fellowship. Below
the quṭb were four “awtād,” from whose ranks his successor was chosen, and
below them, in the next rank of the hierarchy, were forty “abdāl” or
substitutes, who are described as being the pivot of the world and the
foundation and support of the affairs of men. Jāmī relates how someone was

402
asked, “How many are the ‘abdāl’?” and he answered, “Forty souls.” And
when asked why he did not say “Forty men,” his reply was, “There have been
women among them.”22

Several works on women in Islamic history mention

distinguished women saints outstanding in their spiritual
character—sapiential knowledge, perfection, wisdom,
graciousness, and magnanimity—but the light of the hidden
jewel of the inner personality of hundreds of women saints
whose shrines are found all over the Islamic world has not
shone on the pages of Islamic history, and the memorial to
their truly spiritual way of life has not as yet been built.

One of the recent voluminous works entitled Aʿlām al-nisāʾ fī

ʿālam al-ʿarab waʾl-islām by ʿUmar Riḍā Khalāh lists 2,556
distinguished women and gives their life sketches. These
women adorned themselves with spiritual virtues and
equipped themselves with various branches of Islamic
knowledge and learnings and engaged themselves in spiritual
activity. However, the list is far from being an exhaustive
one, for the writer knows of several women saints who are not
mentioned but whose shrines are spread throughout the
Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. It would not be out of place to
mention here that the writer had the good fortune of being in
the company of Rābiʿah Baṣrī (a namesake of Rābiʿah
al-ʿAdawīyyah), a truly great saint of Pakistan who passed
away a few years ago leaving behind her a valuable spiritual
work entitled Fazān-i murshid, which is a living testimony of
her sainthood.

In conclusion, it is maintained that not only a male but also a

female who succeeds in realizing her spiritual potential earns
the coveted title of “friend of God” (ḥabīb Allāh) and fulfills

403
her destiny as the servant of God (ʿabd Allāh). It should be
recalled that to be ʿabd Allāh is the proudest rank a Muslim
can claim, for the bondage to God implies liberation from all
other servitudes. The chosen ones, and especially devoted
men and women, are
called slaves of God in the Quran. It is noteworthy that one of
the epithets of the Prophet is ʿAbd. So a Muslim saint—male
or female—is a servant worshiping and fulfilling duties of
servantship (ʿubūdiyyah). Saintly persons are engrossed in the
practices of Aḥmad23 and are absorbed in the love of Aḥad.24
They occupy their time with all kinds of meritorious work
(qurābāt) truthfully and righteously. It is about such servants
that the Quran says:

Those who believe and do right:

joy is for them and bliss their

journey’s end.

(XIII, 29)

Notes

1. Maqām is a term used for denoting a well-established

station on the spiritual path. It is differentiated from the term
ḥal, which means a temporary stage experienced during one’s
spiritual journey.

2. Saying of Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Walī quoted in E. G. Browne,

A Literary History of Persia (London: T. F. Unwin, 1928–29)
3:472.

3. Abuʾl–Majd Sanāʾī, Ḥadīqatuʾl-Ḥaqīqat, trans. J.

Stevenson (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1910) 1.

404
4. Maḥmūd Shabistarī, Gulshan-i-Rāz, trans. E. H. Whinfield
(London: Trubner, 1880) 52.

5. This ḥadīth, from the collection Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ, is

quoted here from S. G. Campion, The Eleven Religions
(London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1944) 188.

6. Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī, The Song of Lovers, trans. A. J.

Arberry (London and New York: Oxford University Press,
1939) 22–23.

7. This is a term that is more comprehensive in meaning than

the word grace, by which it is usually translated. Barakah
stands for spiritual blessing issuing from the Sacred and
having the power of leading to the Sacred.

8. M. Smith, The Sufi Path of Love (London: Luzac, 1954)

118.

9. Maḥbūb Allāh is one of the titles of the Prophet

Muḥammad. It means literally “the Beloved of Allah.”

10. See S. H. Nasr, Islamic Life and Thought (Albany, NY:

State University of New York Press, 1981) 212–13.

11. Raḥmah, which is related to the Divine Names al-Raḥmān

and al-Raḥīm, implies God’s Loving-kindness, Forgiveness,
and Mercy, which create harmony and put things in order.

12. Sulṭān Bāhū’s shrine is located in the eastern part of

Pakistan in a village named after him. Several of his
biographers have mentioned the verse about his mother in

405
their books. The above is translated from a book entitled
Abyā-te Sulṭān Bāhū, written in a local dialect.

13. Hishām, son of ʿUrwah, was one of the Prophet’s

biographers. He was honored in receiving the traditions from
ʿĀʾishah, the “Mother of the Believers,” who is among the
most authentic transmitters of accounts of the Prophet’s
family life.

14. Umm al-muʾminīn is the title given to the wives of the

Prophet. “The Prophet is closer to the faithful than their
selves and his wives are (as) their mothers” (XXXIII, 6).

15. M. Lings, What is Sufism? (Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press, 1981) 53.

16. C. Waddy, Women in Muslim History (London: Longman,

1980) 45.

17. M. Smith, The Sufi Path, 118.

18. From Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥasanī’s Lives of Good Women. The

author was from Damascus and died ca. 824/1420.

19. The Sufi disciplines apply to women as well as men. On

female spirituality in Sufism, see L. Bakhtiar, Sufi:
Expressions of the Mystic Quest (London: Thames & Hudson,
1979); and A. M. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975)
426–35.

406
20. The word reward in this verse refers to proximity to the
Divine in this world and to the attainment of the royal rank of
spiritual beings in the hereafter.

21. M. Smith, Rabia the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in

Islam (Cambridge: University Press, 1928) 1.

22. Ibid., 3.

23. Ahmad is one of the names of the Holy Prophet

Muḥammad referring to his inner or spiritual nature.

24. The One God, Allah.

407
408
 Part Three

SUFISM:
The Inner Dimension of Islam

409
410
 12

The Nature and Origin of Sufism

ABU BAKR SIRAJ ED-DIN

If We had sent down this Quran upon a mountain thou wouldst have seen it
humbled, split asunder out of the fear of God. (LIX, 21)

IN THE LIGHT OF THIS VERSE it was indeed to be

expected, with regard to the Revelation on which Islam is
based, that such an overwhelming approach from God to man
should have awakened, in the opposite direction, a response
from man to God which infinitely transcended the mediocrity
of exoterism. “Without doubt. But when?” is perhaps an
obvious comment. There is no reason to suppose that the
revelation of the Torah was any less overwhelming, and in
that case the esoterism seems to have taken some time to
develop, though it would be difficult to be certain about this
point. However that may be, the Quran is the herald of “the
Hour,” and one of Islam’s most striking features is
precipitance. The answer to “when” is likely to be “now,” and
this urgency is implicit in the following verse, which occurs
in two of the very earliest suras: “Surely this [the Revelation]
is a Reminder; so let him who will, take unto his Lord a way”
(LXXIII, 19; LXXVI, 29). Islam is spoken of in general
throughout the Quran as “the Way of God,” that is, the path
ordained by God, which may be said to include both
esoterism and exoterism. But “the Way to God,” mentioned

411
only in these two suras, is clearly the esoteric path, and the
causality here is strengthened by the word “Reminder”—that
which produces remembrance (dhikr), which is itself the
essence of Sufism.

All that these verses suggest is fully confirmed elsewhere,

likewise at the outset of the Revelation. In another of the
earliest suras (LVI), the Islamic community is spoken of as
comprising two groups, “the Foremost” and “those on the
right.” This second group is the generality of believers, in
contradistinction to “those on the left,” who are the damned.
As to “the Foremost,” they are said to be “many among the
first (generations) and few among the last,” whereas “those on
the right” are “many among the first and many among the
last.” “The Foremost,” who are to be eventually the esoteric
minority, are further described as “brought nigh (to God)”
(muqarrabūn), a term used to distinguish the archangels from
the angels. This nearness, we are told in another sura, means
the privilege of having direct access to the fountain of
Tasnīm.

A third group also is spoken of in the earlier Revelations,

namely, “the Righteous” (al-abrār). This does not alter the
main twofold division of the community, for the Righteous
are given to drink a draft that has been flavored at Tasnīm
(LXXXIII, 27–28), the same fount at which “the Nigh” drink
directly. This suggests that the Righteous are following in the
footsteps of the Foremost and that their aspirations are set
toward the station of nearness. In a parallel way, they are not
yet fully realized; nonetheless, esoteric status is confirmed in
another very early sura where they are said to drink a draft
that has been flavored at the fountain of Kāfūr (LXXVI, 5–6).
Those who are privileged to drink directly from this other

412
supreme fountain are named “the slaves of God” (ʿibād
Allāh), a designation that has two distinct meanings in the
Quran, one inclusive of all beings—even Satan is a slave of
God—and the other, as in the present context, exclusive of all
who have not realized the essence of slavehood, which is
extinction in God. The slaves of God not only drink directly
from Kāfūr but they cause it to flow at will, “making it gush
forth abundantly.” This suggests a spontaneous and inevitable
cause–effect connection between the “irresistible” emptiness
of the slaves, in themselves the personification of spiritual
poverty (faqr), and the extreme plentitude of Divine Riches
symbolized by the fountain. “Seek to draw nigh unto Me by
that which I have not.” By making nearness the result of
poverty, these words of God to the Sufi Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī,
often quoted by Ibn ʿArabī, imply that “the slaves” are, in
fact, “the brought nigh.”1 The same identity, which is in the
nature of things, is also implicit in one of the first commands
addressed to the Prophet: “Prostrate thyself and draw nigh”
(XCVI, 19), and in his commentary, “The slave is nearest his
Lord when he prostrateth himself,” prostration being the
posture of faqr.2 Moreover, nearness to God has a double
significance analogous to that of slavehood. Metaphysically
speaking, nearness, like slavehood, is an inescapable fact that
concerns everybody. This truth, already in the Divine Name
al-Qarīb, the All-Near, is affirmed by the Quran: “We are
nearer to him (the dying man about whom ye are gathered)
than ye are but ye see not” (LVI, 85). Mystically speaking,
however, “He is Near to us; we are far
from Him”3 Only those who directly perceive the truth of
nearness can be called near.

With regard to slavehood and nearness in their higher and

exclusive sense, a distinction has further to be made between

413
the relative and the Absolute. When the Quran speaks of “the
brought nigh” and “the slaves of God,” the plurals show that
the reference is to what might be called the highest degree of
relative nearness and relative slavehood, a degree that brings
the souls of saints as near as possible to the Divine Presence
without totally extinguishing their separate existence. This is
the summit of the hierarchy of the celestial gardens in the
ordinary sense of the word paradise. Beyond it is the Absolute
Nearness of the Supreme Identity, which the Sufis name “the
Paradise of the Essence” and which excludes all duality. “We
are nearer to him (man) than his jugular vein” (L, 16), and
“God cometh in between a man and his own heart” (VIII, 24),
says the Quran; and the possibility of realizing this identity
was made explicit toward the end of the Prophet’s mission, if
not before, in the following holy tradition: “My slave ceaseth
not to seek to draw nigh unto Me with devotions of his free
will until I love him; and when I love him, I am the hearing
with which he heareth and the sight with which he seeth and
the hand with which he graspeth and the foot on which he
walketh.”4

It follows that sainthood has two aspects: one of relative

nearness and one of Absolute Nearness—Identity. In other
words, the highest goal for man’s aspiration is a dual one.
Thus, in an early Revelation, the believer is promised two
paradises (LV, 46), and this duality had already been affirmed
in a Quranic address to the perfected soul: “O thou soul which
art at peace return unto thy Lord, pleased thou and whelmed
in His good pleasure. Enter thou among My slaves. Enter thou
My Paradise” (LXXXIX, 27–30). If the following utterance
of the Prophet is not a commentary on these verses, it may
nonetheless be used as such: “God will say to the people of
Paradise: ‘Are ye well pleased?’ and they will say: ‘How

414
should we not be well pleased, O Lord, inasmuch as Thou has
given us that which Thou hast not given unto any of Thy
creatures else?’ Then will He say: ‘Shall I not give you better
than that?’ and they will say: ‘What thing, O Lord, is better?’
and He will say: ‘I will let down upon you My Riḍwān.’”5

The ultimate beatitude of Riḍwān is interpreted to mean

God’s taking of a soul to Himself and His eternal good
pleasure therein. In the above passage from the Quran, the
words “pleased thou” express the soul’s own pleasure at the
blessings of a relative nearness (“Enter thou among My
slaves”) and of Absolute Nearness (“Enter thou my
Paradise”). In other words, God’s own paradise is the
paradise of Riḍwān, and it is “better than
that”—better than paradise in the ordinary sense. The same
duality is mentioned and the same precedence reaffirmed in
one of the later Revelations:

God hath promised the believers, the men and the women, gardens that are
watered by flowing rivers wherein they shall dwell immortal, abodes of
excellence in the Paradise of Eden. And Riḍwān from God is greater. That is
the immense attainment. (IX, 72)

It is also significant that when a choice was offered by God to

the Prophet regarding his future, the end he chose is
expressed in dual terms, “the meeting with my Lord and
Paradise.”6

What has been said in these opening paragraphs has been

given pride of place in order to make it clear from the outset
that, with regard to the supreme spiritual possibility offered to
man for his aspiration, the companions of the Prophet were
doctrinally well informed. To pass now to the question of

415
method, the following Quranic verses, by general consent
among the earliest to be revealed, are particularly significant:

Keep vigil the night long save a little—a half thereof, or abate a little thereof
or add (a little) thereto—and chant the Quran in measure . . . and invoke in
remembrance the name of thy Lord and devote Thyself to Him with an utter
devotion. (LXXIII, 2–4, 8)

This Revelation enjoins upon the Prophet—and therefore

indirectly upon his closest followers—an intensity of worship
that goes far beyond anything that could be imposed as a legal
obligation upon a whole community. It is to be noticed,
moreover, that what has always been the essence of Sufi
practice, the invocation of the Divine Name, is prescribed
already here, at the outset of the religion, possibly even before
the ritual prayer had been shown to the Prophet and certainly
well before the five daily prayers had been established as the
central aspect of the exoteric path. The other most essential
aspects of Sufi method, if not all as early as this, are
nonetheless of apostolic origin. Some were established in
Mecca, others in Medina. One of them, the spiritual retreat
(iʿtikāf or khalwah), is in fact pre-Islamic and may be said to
mark a continuity between Abrahamic esoterism and Islamic
esoterism. As to its complement, the spiritual gathering for
the performance of communal voluntary rites (which may
include one or more of the obligatory prayers if they should
happen to be due), it takes its name, “session of
remembrance” (majlis al-dhikr), from the many traditions in
which the Prophet mentioned it with praise. The Sufis have
kept these two practices alive throughout the centuries, and,
generally speaking, they are the only Muslims who still
practice them today. The same applies to certain other aspects
of Sufi method which have been inherited from the Prophet
and his companions.

416
If the term dhikr, “remembrance” or “invocation,” is used
above all in the sense of the already quoted verse—“Invoke in
remembrance the name of thy Lord”—it has always been
used by extension to include other practices, such as the
reading or chanting of the Quran as well as the recitation,
usually a specific number of times, of certain Quranic verses
or other formulas recommended by the Revelation or by the
Prophet. Needless to say, the recitation of the Quran is by no
means confined to the Sufis, and the recommended formulas
are likewise at the disposition of all Muslims. What
distinguishes esoterism here is the methodic regularity of the
recitations, that is, their quantity (the Quran enjoins “much
dhikr”), and the mystical intent that bestows on them their
quality. In many Sufi orders three of these formulas are
woven into one litany, which expresses a triple aspiration
toward purity, perfection, and truth. They are, respectively,
the prayer for God’s forgiveness, the invocation of blessings
and peace upon the Prophet, and the affirmation of the Divine
Oneness. We have no reason to suppose that such composite
litanies were recited at the time of the Prophet, but the
separate formulas themselves with their respective intentions
were unquestionably bequeathed by the first generation of
Islam to future seekers of nearness. The prototype of the
rosary of beads used by the Sufis is said to have been the
knotted cord which the companion Abū Hurayrah devised for
himself.

By the time that Islam had become firmly established in

Medina, the esoterists were already a minority. This is clear
from a Revelation that came not long after the hijrah, which
speaks of “a group of those that are with these” (LXXIII, 20)
in reference to those of the companions who followed most
closely the practices of the Prophet and who may therefore be

417
considered to form a spiritual elect. The purpose of the verse
in question was to modify somewhat the long night vigils,
which, as we have seen, had been imposed by one of the
earliest Revelations. But this modification is not to be
considered merely as a concession to exoterism. It should
rather be taken together with another verse revealed about the
same time, “We have appointed you a middle nation” (II,
143), as evidence of the providential leaning of the new
religion as a whole, including its esoteric aspect, toward
moderation and normality—that is, conformity to the nature
of things. Significant also in this respect is a conversation
between the Prophet and one of his companions which
likewise took place in the early years at Medina. ʿUthmān ibn
Maẓʿūn was, according to his brother-in-law ʿUmar, “the
severest of us all in abstaining from the things of this world.”
It was to him that the Prophet said: “Hast thou not in me an
example?” And when ʿUthmān fervently assented, the
Prophet told him to cease his practice of fasting every day and
keeping vigil every night. “Verily thine eyes have
their rights over thee, and thy body hath its rights, and thy
family have their rights. So pray, and sleep, and fast, and
break fast.”7 Natural pleasures consecrated by praise and
thanks were the dhikr of primordial man, and it was as a
mode of remembrance of God that the Prophet mentioned
them together with worship in his well-known utterance: “It
hath been given me to love perfume and women, and coolness
hath been brought to mine eyes in the prayer.”8 Although not
denying the exemplary nature of the Prophet, the more ascetic
Sufis of subsequent generations would no doubt have justified
the lengths to which they went on the grounds that they
themselves were in greater need of purification than the
companions had been. But the golden mean of the Prophet,
the balance between abstentions for the sake of God and

418
natural pleasures spiritualized by gratitude to God and by
intellectual perception of their Divine Archetypes, has always
had a powerful strain of representatives among the Sufis—not
the least illustrious.

Thus far, with regard to the origins of Sufi method, we have

considered only voluntary devotions and not those which the
Law of Islam makes obligatory and which are therefore
practiced by all Muslims. As far as they concern the majority,
they may be called exoteric. In virtue of their simplicity and
transparency, however, they could be described as exoterized
esoterism; and as practiced by the spiritual minority they are
re-esoterized. “The esoterism of these practices resides not
only in their obvious initiatic symbolism, it resides also in the
fact that our practices are esoteric to the extent that we
ourselves are esoteric.”9 Moreover, the obligatory rites of
Islam revert all the more easily to their basic inward
significance by reason of the performer’s independence of
any intermediary—inasmuch as every Muslim is his own
priest. Nor can there be any doubt that the origin of this
interiorization of the outward is to be traced back to the
Prophet himself. A great and far-reaching precedent that he
established in this respect is in his well-known utterance on
returning from one of his last campaigns: “We have returned
from the Lesser Holy War to the Greater Holy War,”10 and in
his subsequent definition of the Greater Holy War as “the war
against the soul” (jihād al-nafs). Since he said also that the
jihād of women was the pilgrimage, it is therefore
possible—and indeed necessary for those who have the
vocation—to differentiate between an outer and an inner
pilgrimage. The same applies to the fast and to almsgiving,
which symbolize respectively abstention from the world and
giving oneself to God. As to the ritual prayer, we have

419
already seen the innermost significance of the prostration
which marks its climax. The difference between exoterism
and esoterism depends here, as also for the ritual ablution
which precedes the prayer, on “the extent to which we
ourselves are esoteric,” that is, in these
two cases, the depth and scope of our conceptions—and
therefore our intentions—of humility and purity.

420
27. “Sufis in Ecstasy,” attributed to Muhammad Nadir
al-Samarqandi, Mughal, ca. 1650–1655, Johnson Album 7,
No. 5.

421
The first pillar of Islam, which sums up the whole religion,
exoterically as well as esoterically, consists of the two
testimonies “There is no divinity but God” and “Muhammad
is the Messenger of God.” Here again, it is a question of the
extent of understanding and aspiration. For one who has a
sense of the Absolute, that is, an adequate sense of Divinity,
the first testimony allows only a fleeting ephemerality to
other than God. When the esoterist says there is no divinity
but God, included in his meaning is the truth that there is no
reality save the one Reality. In the face of objection, he can
quote the saying of the Prophet with regard to what preceded
creation: “God was, and there was nothing with Him” and the
appended comment, anonymous but in itself irrefutable, “He
is now even as He was.”11 The exoterist can make nothing of
this, but he cannot deny it, for to do so would be to incur the
blasphemy of ascribing mutation to the Immutable. The
Quran, moreover, upholds the rights of the Absolute:

There is no god save Him. Everything will perish save His Face. His is the
command, and unto Him ye will be brought back. (XXVIII, 88)

Also relevant is the verse from which are derived the Sufi
terms fanāʾ (extinction) and baqāʾ (subsistence, remaining,
survival, eternity):

All that is thereon suffereth extinction: and there remaineth the Face of Thy
Lord in Its Majesty and Bounty. (LV, 26–27)

This is the level of Riḍwān, the beatific reintegration of

manifested spirits into the Infinite Oneness of the “Hidden
Treasure.” This designation of the Divine Essence is taken
from the holy tradition: “I was a Hidden treasure, and I loved
to be known, and so I created the world.”

422
As to the second testimony, it establishes a communion
between the relative and its Origin-End, the Absolute,
inasmuch as a messenger not only proceeds from his sender
but also returns to him. If Muhammad is an ideal and
therefore a model, the first thing to be imitated is his most
essential characteristic, namely, this communion, and with it
as intense a consciousness as possible of the whence of Origin
and the whither of End.

It does not appear to be on record that the Prophet was ever

asked in so many words to define his own most essential
characteristic. But when a person whose function it is to be
the personification of excellence is asked to define excellence,
the chief point of the question is that the answer should be
subjective. What is in fact hoped for is the answer to that
other question. When asked “What is excellence?” by the
archangel, the Prophet
might have replied, “Muḥammad is the Messenger of God,”
except that it would have been too elliptical. His answer was
nonetheless parallel to the second testimony of Islam in that it
traces out a line of connection between the Absolute and the
relative: “Excellence is that thou shouldst worship God as if
thou sawest Him. And if thou seest Him not, yet He seeth
Thee.”12

In the case of the Prophet himself—and by extension the

saint—that line is operative in both directions. “As if thou
sawest him,” which has a more negative implication than the
Arabic original, could almost be translated, “as one that seeth
Him”; it could, moreover, be paraphrased “as one whose heart
is awake,” and the Prophet said on another occasion, “My
heart is awake.” Also relevant are the words of the already
quoted holy tradition “and when I love him . . . I am the eye

423
wherewith he seeth.” For those whom God loves, the
Absolute “lends” its sight to the relative so that the primordial
line of vision from earth to heaven, disconnected by the fall,
may be reestablished. The essential function of man is
mediation, which means that human excellence depends
precisely on access to the Transcendent. As to “worship,” it
includes faith and practice, both of which the archangel had
asked the Prophet to define before asking him about
excellence (iḥsān). “To worship God as if thou sawest Him”
thus means excellence of faith (īmān) and excellence of
conformity (islām) to the Divine Will, expressed by the Law.

This amounts to the addition of a third dimension to faith and

practice, that of height and depth, the axis of man’s mediation
between heaven and earth. Nor are the Sufis alone among
Muslims in holding that iḥsān is the domain of mysticism or
esoterism, that is, of Sufism.

Since Sufism is based, as we have seen, on a revelation that is

not for esoterists only, it is necessarily linked with an
exoterism together with which it forms a religion. That
religion, like Buddhism and Christianity and unlike Hinduism
and Judaism, is a world religion. But unlike the other two
world religions, Islam is based, like Judaism, on a revealed
message rather than on the messenger himself. That message
is, moreover, the last revelation of this cycle of time, which
means that its inner aspect, in addition to the universality that
every esoterism possesses by its very nature, will also be
universal in the way that any final summing up is bound to
be. Significant in this respect is the Islamic credo, which
affirms belief “in God and His Angels and His Books and His
Messengers” (II, 285). Moreover, man is the representative
(khalīfah) of God, and a representative must conform to the

424
nature of Him Whom he represents, in Whose image he is
made. The stage is, as it were, set for universality in the
following verse:

Unto God are the East and the West, and whithersoever ye turn, there is the
Face of God. Verily God is Infinitely Vast, Infinitely Knowing.” (II, 115)

Three times the Quran complains: “They esteem not God as

He hath the right to be esteemed” (VI, 91; XXII, 74; XXXIX,
67), nor does it tolerate, in particular, such narrownesses of
perspective, which tends, without being conscious of the fact,
to sacrifice the Glory of God to the glory of one particular
religion. More than one exoteric outlook is based on
assumptions which, if pushed to their logical conclusions,
would seem to imply that God has left large parts of the globe
in spiritual darkness for long periods of time. The Quran
sweeps all such illusions aside: “For every nation there is a
Messenger” (X, 47), and “Verily We have sent Messengers
before thee, about some We have told thee, and about some
We have not told thee” (XL, 78). We may quote also, in this
connection the following: “Verily the Faithful [Muslims] and
the Jews and the Christians and the Sabaeans—whoso hath
faith in God and the Last Day and doeth deeds of piety—their
meed is kept for them with their Lord, and no fear shall come
upon them, neither shall they grieve” (II, 62). Finally, lest it
be imagined that such declarations refer only to the past and
that all other revelations have been superseded by itself, the
Quran expressly states: “For each We have appointed a law
and a path; and if God had wished He would have made you
one people. . . . So vie one with another in good works. Unto
God is your return, all of you together, and He will then
inform you of that wherein ye were at variance” (V, 48).13

425
Side by side with universality, there is another characteristic,
which belongs to every esoterism as such but which Sufism
possesses in a double sense—namely, primordiality. The end
of a cycle rejoins, in a sense, its starting point, and Islam is
defined as the primordial religion, “God’s original upon
which he originated mankind” (XXX, 30). This mysterious
affinity between the end and the beginning is marked by the
Quran’s insistence on the miracle of creation. The created
universe is set before man as a stuff that is woven with “the
signs (or symbols) of God” (āyāt Allāh). “The seven heavens
and the earth and all therein glorify Him. Nothing is, but
glorifieth Him with Praise” (XVII, 44). The praise in question
is the fact of manifesting an aspect of the Divinity, and there
is absolutely nothing that does not owe its existence to the
overflow of the Divine Nature in Its Will to manifest Itself.
The holy tradition quoted above, “I was a Hidden Treasure,
and I loved to be known, and so I created the world,” may be
said to sum up the cosmogonic doctrine of all mysticism. For
the esoterist, creation means nothing other than God’s
manifestation of Himself. There could be no possible
divergence between the Christian mystic, for example, and
the
Sufi in this respect. But it cannot be said that the New
Testament is haunted by the idea of creation, whereas in the
Quran the theme of God’s creation of the world is like a
continually repeated refrain. The Sufi, formed by the Quran,
has the obligation to be primordial not only in his aspiration
to regain the original perfection of man—the preliminary goal
of every mysticism—but also in what might be called
“creation-consciousness.” It is reasonable to suppose that our
first ancestors were of all men the least in need of being
reminded how they and the world came into existence. If
religion was not yet necessary, that was because the

426
“ligament,” after which religion is named and which it seeks
to renovate, was still vibrant. To use the traditional symbol of
the tree as an image of the cosmos—both of macrocosm and
microcosm—the first men were profoundly and directly
aware of being attached to their Divine Root, and they
extended this subjective certainty to all that surrounded them.
Everything was an object of wonder, in virtue of the
Transcendent Reality which it manifested, the Hidden
Treasure which it had to make known. The failure to live up
to that attitude—the failure to maintain the consciousness of
the symbolic nature of each object, the choice of something
for its own sake regardless of its archetype—was the cause of
the fall. Typical of the Quran and of the perspective it has
generated is its dismissal of any need for miracles in the
ordinary sense. The following passage is primordial also in
virtue of its extreme simplicity: “Will they not behold the
camels, how they are created? And the firmament, how it is
raised aloft? And the mountains, how they are established?
And the earth, how it is spread?” (LXXXVIII, 17–20).

Primordiality and universality—the one implies the other. At

the beginning of a cycle, prejudices, partialities, and other
factors of limitation have not yet come into existence to blur
and distort man’s conception of the nature of things. Both
universality and primordiality are reflected, to a certain
extent, in the outer aspects of Islam. But both are by
definition esoteric, and there is a limit to what the exoteric
Muslim can draw from them. It falls upon the Sufi alone to do
justice to the universal and primordial aspects of the Quranic
message. Nor can there be any adequate definition of the
nature of Sufism which fails to take into account this burden
and this privilege. However, few members of the Sufi orders

427
are in fact able to escape sufficiently from the contagious
limitations of the exoterism that surrounds them.

In virtue of its claim to be al-Furqān (the Criterion, the

Distinguisher), the Quran demands extreme discrimination,
which likewise dominates the Sufi perspective as complement
to universality. The structure of the universe calls for a sense
of hierarchy. Although everything reflects a Divine Aspect
and “nothing is, but glorifieth Him with praise,” the praise is
loud
or faint, the reflection clear or dim, in proportion to the
nearness or farness of the world of the praiser and according
to the praiser’s own relatively central or peripheric status in
that world. The Quran insists continually on differences and
precedences, often in asides addressed to the esoteric minority
and prefixed with vocatives such as “O ye who have insight”
or “O ye who have hearts.” The Sufi has no choice but to be
vigilant, observant, and discerning, to put everything in its
rightful place, and to give everything its due.

Vastness and precision—these two intellectual demands made

of the Sufi—are complementary aspects of the perspective of
Truth which characterizes Islam as a whole and which its
esoterism has the responsibility of carrying to the widest and
deepest conclusions. It is in virtue of this perspective that
Sufism is a way of knowledge rather than a way of love. As
such it tends to repudiate partialities which the perspective of
love necessarily condones and even encourages. Fidelity to a
person means looking neither to the right nor to the left, and
the New Testament, which tells of a way of love, is, as it
were, wrapped round the person after whom this way is
named. Fidelity to truth, on the other hand, means looking as
far as possible—and as clearly as possible—in all directions,

428
and that is the outlook which the Quran imposes. Two of the
great Sufis have nonetheless been called “the Lover”
(Sumnūn ibn Ḥamzah al-Baṣrī [d. 303/915]) and “the Sultan
of those who long” (ʿUmar ibn al-Fāriḍ [d. 632/1235]). This
second title has its implication for Sufism as a whole, since
“the longers” are the Sufis. But the love in question is rather
the result than the starting point of metaphysical penetration:
in other words, it is based on Oneness which transcends all
duality. As such its presupposes the extinction (fanāʾ) of the
relative in the Absolute, the finite in the Infinite.

The Sufi doctrine of al-baqāʾ baʿd al-fanāʾ (survival after

extinction) or fanāʾ al-fanāʾ (the extinction of extinction) is
implicit in the verse quoted above: “All that is thereon
suffereth extinction, and there remaineth the Face of Thy
Lord in Its Majesty and Bounty.” Of particular significance is
the final word. If it be asked how there can be any question of
bounty when all its possible recipients have been
extinguished, the answer is that a mother’s bounty to an
unborn child in her womb is a symbol of the bounty of the
Divine Essence to the archetypes of all beings which are
mysteriously one with It. But by inverse analogy the state of
the embryo in the womb is the state of least development,
whereas in the Essence the archetypes are the Supreme
Plenitudes from which all manifested beings derive and into
which they are ultimately reabsorbed. These archetypes are
what Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ʿArabī terms “the immutable
essences” (al-aʿyān al-thābitah),14 and they are the themes of
his lines: “We were letters, exalted, not yet altered,
Held aloft in the Keep of the Highest of Summits. I therein
am Thou, and We are Thou, and Thou art He, and all is in He
is He—ask of any that so far hath reached.”15

429
To approach the same truth from another angle, one of the
“signs” most frequently held out to man by the Quran for his
meditation is “the difference between day and night.” This
difference is richly symbolic at more than one level. But
above all, transcending all differentiation yet retaining all that
is positive in differentiation, day and night have, as their
Divine Prototypes, the Majesty and Beauty (or Bounty) of
God, that is, the Absolute and the Infinite respectively. But
since day may be said to come forth from night, day
represents, below its highest significance of Majesty, the
whole of manifestation that proceeds from the Infinite Night
of the Essence. As the Supreme Object of aspiration, the
Essence is thus personified as Laylā, a woman’s name
meaning “Night”; and from the fourth/tenth century to the
present day, many Sufi love poems have been addressed to
her. In this context the stars are immutable essences. Hidden
in the day of illusion, they come into their own in the Night of
Reality. In his poem to Laylā, the Shaykh al-ʿAlawī thus
affirms his own spiritual realization in these words: “My star
resplendeth in her firmament.”16 A thousand years previously
“the Lover” had expressed the same reality, addressing
himself directly to God, and using the symbolism of the
ocean, which is parallel to that of night: “Thou hast thrown
me to swim in the ocean of Thy holiness, And inexistent,
without trace, I desire Thee from within Thee.”17 Both
formulations are typical of Sufism inasmuch as they are
expressions of love within the framework of gnosis, and both
are related to the mystery of Riḍwān.

Another question that needs to be considered in connection

with the nature of Sufism is that of development. If the
esoterism of every religion is a prolongation of the presence
of its founder, it must also be something of a compensation

430
for his absence. And if Sufism has its roots in the apostolic
age and draws in fact its substance from that age, it has also
been enriched directly and “vertically,” in various domains,
by the inspirations with which the great spiritual masters have
been blessed throughout the centuries.

It has already been said that all essential aspects of Sufi

method are of apostolic origin. That is what the Sufis claim.
And, if occasion arises, in justification of the rhythmic bodily
movement performed in many of the orders at their sessions
of remembrance, they quote the saying of the Prophet:
“Ungenerous is he who shaketh not at the remembrance of the
Beloved.” Moreover, it is in the nature of things to sway from
side to side or to make some other comparable movement as
an aid to concentration.
It is scarcely possible, however, to account in this way for a
formal dance such as is performed by the Mawlawīs, who are
known to the West as “the whirling dervishes.” The essential
feature of the dance is the whirling motion upon the axis of
the perfectly upright body with arms stretched out to the full
on either side, the right palm upward to receive the graces of
heaven and the left palm downward to transmit them to earth.
This bodily enactment of universality and primordiality is
altogether Quranic in spirit, but it was destined to remain
latent for more than six centuries until it dropped, as a gift
from heaven, upon Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, the great seventh/
thirteenth-century Persian Sufi who lived in Anatolia. Earlier
and later Sufi masters have also been inspired with
movements which, if less spectacular than the Mawlawī
dance, can be no less operative as aids to concentration. In
one sense such “postapostolic” practices are not “essential
aspects of Sufi method,” since they are not practiced in all the
orders. But in themselves they are of undeniably essential

431
spiritual importance, and as such they must be counted as an
exception—one might say the only exception—to the general
rule of apostolic origin for all that is essential in Sufi method.

The exoterism which, in Islam, surrounds esoterism is in

general suspicious of any practice or theory that has no
warrant from the apostolic age. Rightly so, since there is no
heresy that does not claim to be based on a special Divine
Inspiration. For the Sufis these considerations impose a
discretion and even a secrecy which are not unfavorable to
esoterism and which have their roots in Medina, from the last
years of the Prophet’s life. Abū Hurayrah said: “I have
treasured in my memory two stores of knowledge which I had
from the Messenger of God. One of them I have divulged; but
if I divulged the other, ye would cut this throat,” and he
pointed to his own neck.18

It is no doubt in the domain of doctrine that most of the Sufi

acquisitions since the outset of Islam are to be found—not
with regard to the principles themselves but by way of
analytical formulations—and we have already seen the
striking example of Ibn ʿArabī’s theory of “the immutable
essences.” The whole work in which this occurs is manifestly
at a very high degree of inspiration, and the same may be said
of other Sufi treatises, by him and by others. Likewise
relevant to this context are utterances that lie at the opposite
pole from analysis, flashes of poetic light, and also ejaculated
aphorisms, typical of Sufism, such as “the Sufi is not created”
and “thine existence is a sin wherewith no other sin may be
compared.” These are purely esoteric; but mention must be
made, in addition, of more general blessings, likewise held in
reserve by Providence for nonapostolic and therefore more
needy generations—modes of development which, though

432
initially dependant on Sufism, concern the whole of Islam.
The Prophet
promised: “The earth shall never be found lacking in forty
men of the like of the Friend [Abraham] of the All-Merciful.
Through them shall ye be given to drink, and through them
shall ye be given to eat.” The forty men are clearly the
esoteric nucleus which constitutes the heart of the religion.
Just as the heart of the breast receives the mysterious gift of
life from above and then transmits it to the rest of the body, so
Sufism—“the heart of Islam,” as it is often called—is obliged
to transmit a sufficiency of what it receives to the arteries of
the religion in its entirety. In connection with the closing
words of the above promise, it must be remembered that
every religion, during the first few centuries of its existence,
has to develop its own particular civilization and make it as
perfect as possible a setting for its spirituality. One of the
dominating elements of every such setting, that is, of every
theocratic civilization, is sacred art, which, far from being a
mere human invention, must always come initially as a gift
from heaven. The history of sacred art shows it to be
inextricably bound up with esoterism in every age and clime,
and Sufism had an untold influence on the development of the
sacred arts of Islam, of which the most important are no doubt
architecture and calligraphy.19

These last paragraphs must not, however, be allowed to give

the impression that Sufism is pervaded by what is sometimes
called “the spirit of development.” Aside from the question of
providential acquisitions which are part of the normal growth
of a traditional civilization, the Sufis are the most implacably
conservative element in the Islamic community. In other
words, if they necessarily yield to pressure from above, they
have shown themselves to be, like the representatives of all

433
other esoterisms, adamantine in resisting pressures from
below, like those which demand “conformity to the age in
which we live.” Such slogans are parried by Sufism, in virtue
of the “furqānic” discrimination that it stands for, by the
question: “Does the age deserve conformity to it?” The same
sense of values includes both the consciousness of all that is
most essential to the spiritual heritage of Islam and the will to
protect it. For three generations and more, the Sufis have been
blamed throughout the Near and Middle East for “centuries of
stagnation in the Muslim world,” and they have incurred
hostility from many sides as the last outposts of resistance to
modernization in every Islamic country. Only now is there a
gleam of recognition, perhaps increasing, that the Sufis were
right.

Notes

1. Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūhāt al makkiyyah (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir,

n.d.) 2: 16, 214, 263, 561.

2. Ibn Ḥanbal, II, 421.

3. This saying in various forms is mentioned by Farīd al-Dīn

ʿAṭṭar, in his Manṭiq al-ṭayr and in many other classical
works of Sufism.

4. Bukhārī, LXXXI, 37.

5. Muslim, LI, 2.

6. Ibn Isḥāq, 1000.

7. Ibn Saʿd, III/1, 289–90.

434
8. Ibn Saʿd, 1/2, 112.

9. F. Schuon, Sufism: Veil and Quintessence, trans. W.

Stoddart (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 1981) 147.

10. Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā (Kitāb al-zuhd).

11. Bukhārī, LIX, 1.

12. Muslim, I, 1.

13. The Quran speaks with the voice of Divinity not only in
the first person (both singular and plural) but also in the third
person, sometimes changing from one to the other in two
consecutive sentences as here.

14. Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, chapter on Seth.

15. Quoted in a seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth century

Sufi treatise of uncertain authorship, Laṭāʾif al-iʿlām from Ibn
ʿArabī’s al-Manāzil al-insāniyyah (a presumably lost work). I
am indebted to M. Chodkiewicz for this reference.

16. Cf. M. Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1971) 225.

17. Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ, ed. R. A. Nicholson

(London: Luzac, 1914) 250.

18. Bukhārī, III, 42.

19. See T. Burckhardt, Art of Islam (London: Festival of the

World of Islam, 1976) 9; M. Lings, The Quranic Art of

435
Calligraphy and Illumination (London: Festival of the World
of Islam, 1976) 13–41, 100–101.

436
437
 13

The Early Development of Sufism

VICTOR DANNER

The Period of Revelation

SUFISM TRACES ITS ORIGINS back to the Quranic

revelation and the Sunnah (norm) of the Prophet. If we
examine a typical silsilah, or chain of transmission of a Sufi
order, we note that the Divine Name Allāh comes first,
followed by the name of the archangel Gabriel (or Jibraʾīl, in
Arabic), after which comes that of Muḥammad, and then the
name of one or another of his companions, and so on through
a series of different names until we reach the latest teacher of
Sufism in our days. The silsilah really indicates that the
ultimate origin and root of the path (ṭarīqah) is to be found in
the Divinity, who revealed it to the Messenger through the
archangel of Revelation, Gabriel, the personification of the
revelatory function of the Spirit. Because the path traced out
by the Prophet has a transcendent spiritual inception, it cannot
but manifest itself in the Quran and in the Sunnah, the two
foundations of the Islamic religion. These two are also the
foundations for the Law (Sharīʿah) of Islam, which has to do
with the domain of action, whereas the path is concerned with
the life of contemplation. That both the Law and the path
should repose on the same Quran and Sunnah simply shows
that we can look at the Islamic message from two different
but complementary perspectives, the exoteric and the esoteric.

438
The latter is the spiritual or mystical content of the doctrine of
Divine Unity (tawḥīd), and the former is the literal or even the
purely dogmatic affirmation that God is One. Both
dimensions are to be found in the Quran and in the Sunnah. In
other words, there is an esoteric spiritual interpretation of the
revealed Book and of the Sunnah of the Prophet that is
addressed to a small mystical minority of contemplatives.
And there is an exoteric interpretation that reaches out to the
vast majority of believers,
who are not preoccupied with contemplation for many
reasons, but who are attentive to the commandments and
prohibitions contained in the Law of Islam.1

Since exoteric Islam embraces the overwhelming mass of

believers, it is not surprising that the Quran and the Sunnah
seem exclusively addressed to them, with apparently no
provisions for the contemplatives of the community. This is
not a historical accident that could have been otherwise; both
the Book and the Prophet of Islam do seem, at first glance,
quite ordinary when compared, for example, with the mystical
message of the Gospels or the mysterious and even dazzling
spiritual nature of the Christ, who divulged the mystical truths
in the marketplace, so to speak. It is only after immersion into
the inner depths of the Quranic revelation and the Sunnah of
the Prophet that we discover a spiritual world previously
unnoticed on the exoteric surface of the religion. What this
means is that it is the contemplative mind that can perceive
the deeper layers of the Revelation or that can sense the inner
being of the Prophet. The exoteric mind does not fathom the
mystical facets of the Islamic Faith and tends even to reject
them. Yet to understand the spiritual teachings of Islam, one
must first grasp the conventional or exoteric message. It is all
a question of degree: tawḥīd, therefore, can be simple and

439
rather literal in meaning, or it can be deep and metaphysical.
Between those two extremes there are innumerable
stratifications of meaning. This is as much as to say that the
Shahādah (testimony of faith), which is the sacred
formulation of tawḥīd in Islam, can be interpreted in exoteric
and esoteric terms: Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh, Muḥammadun rasūl
Allāh (“There is no divinity but God, Muḥammad is the
Messenger of God”) is the most concise expression of
tawḥīid, not only from the exoteric viewpoint of the Law but
also and, above all, from the spiritual outlook of Sufi
esoterism.

Although neither the Quran nor the Messenger of Islam seems

mystical to the outsider, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, this
is not because there are no esoteric truths objectively present
in them. Rather, it is because of the subjective veiling of the
outsider. For Sufism, that veiling, which is equivalent to the
blindness of the inner eye of the Spirit within man, “the eye
of the heart” (ʿayn al-qalb), is either temporary and curable or
permanent and incurable. The path, when all is said and done,
is really the progressive unveiling of the inner eye, which
then begins to see what it had not perceived before. But until
then, its subjective state is one of blindness. That being so, the
mystical or esoteric truths embedded in the verses of the
Quran or in the statements and deeds of the Prophet’s Sunnah
will not be intuited save by a person of contemplative
intelligence. However, given that Sufi esoterism is not of
uniform outlook, it stands to reason that one will
discover different and even conflicting attitudes within the
ranks of the Sufis themselves on the contents of the Islamic
message, even though all would agree that theirs is an esoteric
as opposed to an exoteric interpretation.2

440
The ṭarīqah that the Messenger of Islam brought to this
community was a spiritual path based on the realization of the
love and knowledge of Allah. The Sharīʿah that he
established furnished the prescriptive framework of actions
that served as the foundation, so to speak, upon which the
aspirant could build his devotional and sapiential life. The
norm left behind by the Prophet—his all-embracing
Sunnah—is addressed to all aspirations in his community and
contains directives for both the contemplative and the
non-contemplative life, the latter covering warfare,
commerce, marriage, liturgy, morality, government, and a
host of commandments and prohibitions addressed to the
individual and society in general. It is obvious that the
mystical and nonmystical facets of his Sunnah are not always
in harmonious balance or that they cannot be pursued
simultaneously to the limit without sooner or later
extinguishing the inner life altogether (“For the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life,” according to the Gospel). To be an
example for all in his community, however, the Prophet had
to balance the contemplative and the active life in such a way
that even the most modest spiritual aspirations among the
believers could be integrated into the Faith without any
hesitation.

The Nature of the Ṭarīqah

According to the Bhagavad-Gita of the Hindu tradition, the

ways of approaching God can be subsumed under the
headings of action, love, and knowledge, individuals being
vocationally drawn to God through one or another of those
paths. The founders of religion—the great Avataras, as the
Hindus would say—are themselves a synthesis of the three
approaches because they are examples to their respective

441
communities. It is true that Muḥammad would not be
considered an Avatara within the Islamic world because that
presupposes the divinization of the Messenger and, therefore,
associationism (shirk), which is opposed to tawḥīd. But as
Messenger he nevertheless represents in his mission the three
approaches. The Sharīʿah that he brought is a good example
of the path of action, which has in view the paradisal states
within which there is no more suffering or death. The path of
love is exemplified in his devotional attitudes toward the
personal nature of Allah, as Lord of the Universe, and as
described in the anthropomorphic Names of the Divinity
contained in the Quran. The path of knowledge of the
Messenger is best seen in those statements of his having to do
with the nonanthropomorphic Names of the Divinity, those
that refer
to the impersonal Divine Essence, the One in the absolute
sense. In short, the ninety-nine Names of Allah that we find in
the Quran, “the Most Beautiful Names,” as the scripture says,
can be viewed in accordance with the ways of action, love, or
knowledge—or all of these approaches simultaneously.
Indeed, the Divine Names play a role in the metaphysical,
spiritual, and cosmological esoterism of the Sufis that is of
capital importance.

The religion that Muḥammad left behind was based on three

principles, islām (submission), īmān (faith), and iḥsān (virtue
or morality), which were described in a famous ḥadīth
wherein the archangel Gabriel, in the form of a man,
interrogated the Prophet. The principle of islām refers to the
five pillars of the religion, namely, the testimony of faith
(Shahādah), the five daily ritual prayers (ṣalāt), the fast of
Ramaḍān (ṣawm Ramaḍān), the legal alms (zakāt), and the
pilgrimage to Mecca (ḥajj). The principle of īmān is the

442
elementary creed of the religion: faith in Allah, His angels,
His Books, His messengers, the Day of Judgment, and the
predestination of good and evil. Finally, the principle of iḥsān
is summed up in the famous sentence: “It is that thou shouldst
adore God as if thou were to see Him; for if thou seest Him
not, He in any case seeth thee.” All three of these principles
describe likewise the condition of the Muslim or of Islam:
they are descriptive, and even normative, and the individual
as well as the community at large rises or falls in accordance
with their presence or absence in him or in society as a whole.
But at the same time they are interrelated: the more iḥsān in
the believer, the more īmān and islām, in the deeper sense, he
will have. The opposite is also true: the less iḥsān, the less
īmān and islām in him. It is not for nothing that the Sufis have
made the art or science of iḥsān the key to the spiritual path.
In this connection it is well to remember that the three
principles can be seen from an exoteric point of view as well
as from the esoteric. Likewise, they can be interpreted from
the perspectives of action, love, or knowledge, or all together.
All of this has to be borne in mind when assessing the nature
of the Prophet. His islām, īmān, and iḥsān were simple
enough in formulation and deed to capture the imagination of
the generality of believers; yet they contain the esoteric
premises of a deeply contemplative life, when seen in
conjunction with the mystical aspects of his Sunnah and the
Quran.

In spite of all that has just been said about the mystical
elements in the Quran and the Sunnah, most Western scholars
see nothing particularly spiritual about either one. This means
that the development of Sufism must have come about from
extraneous, non-Islamic sources, not from the revealed
message of Islam itself. As previously stated, however,

443
Sufism bases itself on the Quran and the Sunnah, mystically
interpreted. This leads to the conclusion that the Quran is
really the first and foremost mystical text
of Islam and that the Prophet is the first and the greatest of the
Sufi sages and saints, even though the term ṣūfī, in reality, is
of later origin. Both modernist Muslims, who are
antitraditional and get their ideas from Western sources
anyway, and diehard fundamentalists, who are opposed to the
mystical or contemplative life, reject such conclusions out of
hand. Although some Westerners accept the possibility that
there is something spiritual in either the Quran or the Prophet,
or even in both together, the general tendency is to strip both
of their transcendent nature and to account for the presence of
a mystical tradition in Islam by reference to non-Islamic
doctrines such as Neoplatonism, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Christianity, and the like.3 But there is a confusion here
between the spiritual reality of Sufism and its verbal
expressions. The latter can easily incorporate foreign
formulations drawn from Neoplatonism, for example, if they
correspond more exactly to the inspirations of the Sufi
teachers. There is nothing unusual in that process, especially
in view of the fact that Neoplatonism is simply a Greek
intellectual mysticism that could not but square, in a
somewhat more analytical fashion, with the Semitic
expressions of the Sufi esoterists of early Islam.

Mysticism is a teaching about the Divine Reality and a

method of realization that permits the seeker to reach It in one
way or another. In Islam, that teaching revolves around
tawḥīd, which is the central doctrine of both the Quran and
the Sunnah. The method of realization has always been “the
remembrance of God” (dhikr Allāh), which has no doubt
many general meanings, going from the simple recitation of

444
Quranic verses to the permanent invocation of a Divine
Name, particularly Allāh. The essence of the Islamic Faith is
to be found in tawḥīd and dhikr: the former dissolves the
associationism (shirk) that is characteristic of fallen human
nature, and the latter removes the tendency toward
forgetfulness (ghaflah) that is part and parcel of the fall. The
mystic’s tawḥīd and dhikr are not different in kind from those
of the ordinary Muslim throughout the ages; but they are
different in degree and quality, and that is precisely what
constitutes the distinction between the exoteric and the
esoteric view of things. For the Sufis, the Prophet’s tawḥīd
and dhikr embraced both the nonmystical and mystical levels
of Islam, and could not but do so, given that he was to be a
model for his entire community and not just simply for the
mystics or the nonmystics.

In addition to the doctrine and the method of concentration,

the Messenger also bequeathed to the contemplatives of his
community the initiatic pact (bayʿah), which is the
Muḥammadan grace (barakah muḥammadiyyah) transmitted
from master to master throughout the centuries and from them
to their disciples. This is said to be the “second birth,” which
is purely
spiritual. It is referred to in Islam as “the pact of Divine
Contentment” (bayʿat al-riḍwān; cf. Quran XLVIII, 10). One
of the significations of the silsilah in the Sufi orders has been
to show the unbroken transmission of that initiatic grace
throughout the long centuries from the Messenger’s day to
those masters of our times who confer the bayʿah.

Finally, mention must also be made of the aesthetic legacy

left by the Prophet as an important aspect of the ṭarīqah.4
This has to do not only with the protocol of conduct (ādāb)

445
between the Prophet and his companions but also the actual
aesthetic ambience he left behind as an integral part of his
Sunnah: the fact of his sitting on the ground surrounded by
circles of his companions; the clothing worn by him; the
spiritual retreats he performed and the character of his pious
life; and the general aesthetic atmosphere found in his home
and in the places of worship. All of that became a kind of
prototypal form that would be developed into more
sophisticated and even more ornate structures later on in the
history of Sufism. The aesthetic Sunnah of the Prophet
especially has played a considerable role in the contemplative
life of Islam.

Those four elements—the spiritual doctrine on tawḥīd, the

method of concentration known as the dhikr, the initiatic
bayʿah, and the aesthetic Sunnah of the Prophet—also have
their exoteric applications in the conventional forms of Islam.
The Sharīʿah has its own version of tawḥīd, its own
“remembrance” in the daily ritual prayers, its own pact in
commercial and political agreements, and its own aesthetic
forms in the mosques and other religious edifices, not to
mention the traditional garments. Here it is important to
remember that, in talking about the ṭarīqah as a mystical way,
one is talking not simply about abstract teachings unrelated to
daily existence but about a whole way of life that is imbedded
in the Islamic religion and that is the actual heart of the
tradition.

The Companions of the Prophet

When the Prophet died (in 11/632), the religion he had

founded was transmitted to posterity through his Companions,
who occupy a rank all unto themselves in the eyes of the

446
Muslims because of their proximity to him. The tradition has
never fixed once and for all the actual number of his
Companions. When the number is quite large, it is easy to see
that not all of them could have been mystics, to say the least.
For example, the first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiyah (d. 60/
680), is sometimes considered to be a Companion, but it
would be difficult indeed to attribute any contemplative traits
to him. When, on the other hand, the number of Companions
is quite small, including the first four caliphs of Islam (“the
orthodox caliphs,” who
reigned from 11–40/632–661), then it is possible to discern a
more mystical mentality among them. Sufism also points to
some of the Prophet’s wives as having an esoteric cast of
mind, such as Khadījah, ʿĀʾishah, and Zaynab, not to mention
his daughter Fāṭimah. Among his Companions, Abū Bakr,
ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, Abū Hurayrah, Salmān al-Fārsī, and
others are seen as mystical sages.

From all of these individuals the tradition has preserved

sayings, proverbs, deeds, poems, or sermons, according to
case. Some of these words belonged to “the People of the
Veranda” (ahl al-suffah), who led a contemplative and saintly
existence in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. But in no case
do we find extensive works on the spiritual life emanating
from the Companions. We have to await the caliphate of the
Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) before numerous
sermons, long letters, poems, and proverbs containing
mystical nuggets can be found. Tradition would have it that in
the first century of Islam some individuals had many works in
their libraries that were compilations of the Imam ʿAlī’s
sermons and letters. All of that has been lost, and what
remains is scattered in the early anthologies of Arabic
literature or partially collected in the Nahj al-balāghah (The

447
Way of Eloquence), a famous late Shīʿite compilation by the
Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015). For the Shīʿites, the Nahj
al-balāghah is a venerable work because it contains the
sermons, letters, and proverbs of the Imam ʿAlī, “the third of
the three” (the Quran, the Prophet, ʿAlī) in his Arabic
eloquence. Even if all of its contents could be attributed to the
Imam ʿAlī, the fact remains that the mystical element is not
always present. Nevertheless, the Arabic style of the Imam
ʿAlī, especially in his sermons and letters, already reveals a
much more analytical structure than one finds in the ḥadīths
or sermons of the Prophet, and this testifies to the
development that Arab culture underwent in its contacts with
the Persians in Iraq. A number of technical expressions in the
Nahj al-balāghah, bordering on the philosophical, distinguish
the Imam ʿAlī’s words from those of other Companions.
There is a synthetic mysticism in his thinking, with strong
intrusions of gnosis (the ʿirfān of the Shīʿite Imams of the
first century or so of Islam) here and there. Yet, for all that,
the works attributed to the Imam, like the ḥadīths of the
Prophet, are far from being exclusively mystical—or esoteric,
if one will. Instead, one finds in them the three “ways”
(action, love, and knowledge) previously mentioned as
embodied in the person of the Prophet. His Companions, after
all, played the vital role of transmitters who were anxious to
ensure that both the Law and the path reached the next
generation intact. The Imam ʿAlī, therefore, in spite of his
being renowned in Islam for his esoteric authority, was also
one of the pillars of the exoteric Sharīʿah.

If we examine the numerous silsilahs of the Sufi orders that

go back to the Messenger through one or another of his
Companions, the Imam ʿAlī’s name crops up more often than
that of any other companion.5 He seems to have had a radiant,

448
charismatic personality already in the days of the Prophet, and
he drew around him a party (shīʿah) of admiring followers. In
contrast, the other Companions, such as Abū Bakr (d. 13/634)
or ʿUmar (d. 23/644), the first and second caliphs, seem rather
muted in their spirituality, at least in their outward
manifestations of it. But the fact of the matter is that the
initiatic chain of transmission emanating from the Prophet is
not monopolized by the Imam ʿAlī; the names of other
Companions, such as Abū Bakr and Abū Hurayrah, just to
mention these, are also to be found as transmitters of the
Prophet’s mystical teachings and practices pertaining to the
ṭarīqah.

The silsilah of the Sufi orders should be understood as a

transmission of the four elements previously mentioned as
integral parts of the path inaugurated by the Messenger—the
doctrine of tawḥīd, the dhikr, the bayʿah, and the aesthetic
forms. Although it is seen as a transmission, it must not be
construed as devoid of spiritual spontaneity that can, and even
must, arrange those fundamental elements in ways that suit
the changing circumstances of the times. The Imam ʿAlī’s
words at Kufa, where he no doubt had numerous contacts
with Persian sages and culture, already reflect a certain
readaptation of the spiritual life to the novel conditions
brought about by the lightning-like expansions of Islam in the
reign of the caliph ʿUmar. The Buddhist teachings on the
nature of the celestial tactic or strategy (upaya) that brings
about a fresh new school of Buddhism without distorting the
original message of the founder should be applied to the long
series of names in the silsilah of a typical Sufi order. Each
name represents a saintly sage who has readapted the original
message of the Prophet to different circumstances, without
violating the spirit of the Quranic revelation or of the Sunnah

449
in their essential nature. In this respect, it is possible that the
Imam ʿAlī played a very crucial role in the first readjustments
of Islam, both esoteric and exoteric, when it emerged outside
of its Arabian homeland and came into contact with the
non-Arab world, especially the Persians in Iraq, whom the
Imam knew at first hand. Other Companions, such as Salmān
al-Fārsī (Salmān the Persian), who are known for their
mystical sapience, no doubt also had similar functions. But
the Imam ʿAlī, by virtue of his being part of the ahl al-bayt
(people of the household) of the Prophet—a designation that
included his wife Fāṭimah, who was the Prophet’s daughter,
and their two sons, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn—had obviously a
central authority. We have only to recall that the early Shīʿite
Imams of the first century or so of Islam were also authorities
in Sunnism and in
Sufism precisely because they were the most prestigious of
the Prophet’s descendants, the ʿAlids. The later Sufis
constantly refer to these early Imams as sages of the path.
Since three of them, the Imam ʿAlī (d. 40/661), the Imam
Ḥasan (d. ca. 50/670), and the Imam Ḥusayn (d. 61/680),
were members of the ahl al-bayt and intimately bound up
with the Prophet’s life and mission, it is only normal that we
should find their names in the silsilahs of many orders. The
descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fāṭimah and
her husband ʿAlī were therefore graced in a twofold fashion:
they were the actual descendants of Muḥammad and the
transmitters of his eso-exoteric message. That seems to have
been their function in the first century of Islam. But they were
not the only authorities on the scene, especially with respect
to the spiritual path. There were others; their time had not yet
come. In the days of the Companions, the integral message of
Islam was no doubt transmitted by a number of them, but the

450
Imam ʿAlī was in the forefront, if only because of his
charismatic brilliance.

The Followers of the Companions

Within the Islamic tradition, the rank of Companion carries

with it the attributes associated with the apostles in the time
of Jesus. Thus, the epoch of the Companions is really the
apostolic generation in Islam. When the last of the
Companions died, the burden of transmission fell on the
shoulders of the next rank, the Followers (al-tābiʿūn) of the
Companions. They did not see the Prophet but were taught by
those who did, the Companions. The Followers have a
prestige of their own that puts them in a light similar to that of
the fathers of the church. In other words, they have a lofty and
authoritative spiritual function within the tradition as a whole:
they not only transmit what they themselves received from
the Companions, but they also exercise a kind of magisterial
role of their own. If the exact number of the Companions has
always varied according to the different authorities, there is
likewise no unanimity regarding the number of the Followers.
In the case of the Followers, however, there can be no
hesitation in saying that the esoterists or mystics among them
were in the minority, for there were simply too many of them
to permit of our saying that they were all equally bent on
treading the path.

The mystical tradition of Islam attributes esoteric teachings to

a number of the Followers, but two of them are outstanding:
the Sunni, Ḥasan al-Bạsrī (d. 110/728), and the fourth Imam
of the Shīʿites, ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (d. 95/714). Of the two,
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī looms as the great patriarch of the

451
ascetico-mystical life, whose long career was decisive for the
Islamic
tradition. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn led a rather secluded existence in
Medina with only a handful of Followers around him. The
sermons of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī are prototypal for Islam; his
constant preoccupation with the terrible events of Judgment
lead one to surmise that the general tenor of his outward life
revolved around the fear of God (makhāfah or khawf). That is
a conclusion that emerges from the fragments of his works
that have come down to us in later anthologies. Since his
sermons were addressed to the public of his time, we do not
sense what might have been his more sapiential positions in
his private oral instruction.

The case is different for the fourth Shīʿite Imam, ʿAlī Zayn
al-ʿĀbidīn. Shīʿism has preserved for us a collection of his
prayers, al-Ṣaḥīfat al-sajjādiyyah (The Scripture of the
Worshiper, the Imam being called al-Sajjād, “the worshiper”),
that are radiantly beautiful and yet tinged with a certain
melancholic serenity that is very touching. Apart from these
prayers, the tradition has transmitted a number of luminous
statements (ḥadīths) that reveal his gnostic and devotional
dispositions. Like Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, he was a great patriarchal
figure of early Islam and seems to have had the same twofold
function of transmitting the Law and the path to his
generation.

Care must be taken here to distinguish between the Imam, as

seen within the Shīʿite tradition, and the same Imam as
viewed by the Sufis and Sunnism in general. There is
considerable difference between the two, especially if we take
into account the later Shīʿite speculations on the role of their
Imams in relation to the Prophet and to the community in

452
general. No such role is attributed to them within esoteric or
exoteric Sunnism. Even though the Sufis and Sunni religious
authorities refer to them as Imams, this in no wise means that
they attribute to the Imams the same infallible religio-political
functions given to them by Shīʿite theologians, such as the
moderate Twelvers. That the early Shīʿite Imams were
conscious of their special role in those days because of their
descent from the Prophet and their religious and mystical
authority is something easily perceived by anyone who
studies the lives and activities of the first six Imams. Their
missions spanned the days of the Umayyad Dynasty and
reached into the beginning of the Abbasids in the second/
eighth century of Islam, or well over a century. But they were
not the sole eso-exoteric authorities of Islam. In some of the
Sufi initiatic lines, one finds the name of the fourth Imam,
Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. His name is not there because of his
function as a Shīʿite Imam; it is there because he is
considered to be one of the eminent gnostic teachers of early
Islam, an authority on the path and a transmitter of the
initiation. In other Sufi chains of transmission, the name of
the great Sunni teacher, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, is to be found, which
is but another way of
saying that the ṭarīqah was transmitted through different
sages in the epoch of the Followers and was not in the least
dependent on the unique lineage of the Imams.

The Spiritual Elect after the Followers

By the time the last Followers left the historical scene, Islam
was split up into different sects, from the Khārijites to the
Murjiʾites to the Shīʿites to the Sunnis to the Muʿtazilites, and
so on, each claiming to represent authentic Islam. The
different sects all pointed to the elect (al-khāṣṣah) in their

453
midst, who generally formed part of the swelling ranks of
ascetics found everywhere in Umayyad days. Asceticism
(zuhd) was a characteristic of the spiritual elite in that epoch.
Perhaps this was a reaction against the increasing worldliness
that the expansive Islamic civilization was generating in the
cities and towns as new wealth and new lands and populations
rallied to the Faith. Perhaps it was an attempt to maintain, for
as long as possible, the desert simplicity of primordial Islam.
Whatever the reason, we find a rather intense asceticism
among all those who led a spiritual life, and this includes
those whom the Sufi tradition claims for itself, such as
Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī (d. 162/777), Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ (d. 187/803),
Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 194/810), Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī (d. ca. 156/
772), Ibrāhīm ibn Adham (d. ca. 165/782), Maʿrūf al-Karkhī
(d. ca. 199/815), the Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), and
the great woman saint, Rābiʿat al-ʿAdawiyyah (d. 185/801).
Their asceticism, however, was not an end in itself and was
accordingly subordinated to their devotional and sapiential
aspirations. It was a discipline in view of the love and
knowledge of God. Although it seemed to go against the
Sunnah of the Prophet, this was so only if we take into
account his social Sunnah and leave out of consideration the
mystical or spiritual Sunnah he left behind. At times the latter
can clash with the exoteric Sunnah—and even must clash
with it—in view of the priority of its transcendent goal, which
is the Divinity, Allah, who is beyond all limitations.

Most of the above-mentioned saintly figures have left only

concise and suggestive remarks or allusions that we can find
in later Sufi works. Some of them composed books, but these
are mostly lost. In Shīʿite literature, the observations and
statements of the sixth Imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, are quite
numerous, touching on all aspects of the Islamic tradition,

454
from Quranic commentary to eschatology to gnostic
teachings. Indeed, the Imam Jaʿfar is one of the great names
in the early Sufi tradition. Living at a time when the Umayyad
Dynasty had collapsed and the Abbasid Dynasty had begun,
he was relatively free, at least for a while, to preach openly. A
master of the gnostic way, he was a teacher of the famous
Jābir ibn Hayyān, the
alchemist, one of the first to be called a Sufi. Although we
can discern a gnostic element in the Imam’s teachings, he
belonged to the formative period of Islam and was therefore
an authority both in the ṭarīqah and Sharīʿah. It is this role as
a member of the salaf, “the pious ancestral authorities” of
Islam, that accounts for his exoteric teachings. The Sufis
consider him primarily as an esoteric teacher, but this
function is not in the least evident in a goodly number of
statements attributed to him that have a purely exoteric or
legalistic nature.

The opposite is the case with the celebrated woman sage,

Rābiʿat al-ʿAdawiyyah of Basra, who incarnated the mystical
way of love in all its radiance, and who was in no wise
limited by the exoteric formulations of Islam.6 The ways of
action, love, and knowledge, which we find in synthetic
fashion in the Messenger of Islam, are to be found in varying
mixtures in the early authorities of Islam, as was said. But in
the second/eighth century, we begin to see intensifications of
these different approaches to God. Perhaps the extraordinary
manifestations of love found in Rābiʿah are to be accounted
for as spiritual compensations for the growing exoteric
legalism that led to the calculated amassing of good deeds in
exchange for posthumous rewards—the fear of punishment,
and not the love of the Lord, being the motivation behind
such deeds. Moreover, the example of Rābiʿah occurs at a

455
time when the salaf were laying down the classic contours of
the religion. She herself, and therefore the way of love, are
prototypal in the spiritual tradition of the community, and this
means that she is one of the salaf herself, in a mystical sense.
This no doubt explains her subsequent renown and presence
in later Sufi literature, as if she had been a kind of avataric
manifestation of pure love untrammeled by the legal codes of
the religious authorities.

Rābiʿah left this world at the very beginning of the third/ninth

century. Her life unfolded in the midst of great cyclical
changes in the history of the Islamic religion. When she came
into the world, the word ṣūfī was practically nonexistent.
However, at her death some eighty years later, in 185/801, it
was synonymous with the adept of the path, and taṣawwuf
(esoterism) meant the integral spiritual path, the ṭarīqah.
Throughout her long life all sorts of movements and historical
forces in Islam contrived to make that identification of Sufism
and the path an absolute necessity and not simply an
accidental occurrence. What took place?

Sufism Emerges as the Integral Path

In his Kitāb al-lumaʿ, Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988) says

that the word ṣūfī was already known in the days of Ḥasan
al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728). Born in
21/643, Ḥasan lived to be around ninety years of age. At what
point in that long period of time the term ṣūfī was used cannot
be determined with exactitude. But what is certain is that
already in the middle of the second/eighth century we hear of
the word in conjunction with certain individuals, such as the
aforementioned Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, a disciple of the sixth
Imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), or Abū Hāshim al-Kūfī

456
al-Ṣūfī (d. ca. 160/776). As the second/eighth century wore
on, the term and its cognates (such as taṣawwuf, “esoterism”)
became more widespread in usage. To account for the
eventual identification of Sufism and ṭarīqah, which we see
taking place in the third/ninth century, we have to examine
what was happening within the Islamic tradition that would
make Sufism as such emerge. When we look into the matter,
we see that a number of historical events were taking place at
that time, all of which had a hand in the surfacing of Sufism:
(1) the tendency to confuse asceticism with the path; (2) the
establishment of the exoteric schools of jurisprudence; (3) the
Shīʿite claims about the Imams; (4) the rise of Islamic
philosophy; (5) the increasing formalism of the doctors of the
Law; and (6) the need to make sure that the integral message
of the Revelation was associated from then on with Sufism. If
we examine these six points, we can see how pertinent they
were to the emergence of Sufism as an Islamic institution.

457
28. “Khwajah Khidr,” ca. 1775–1780, Johnson Album 55,
No. 3.

The second/eighth and third/ninth centuries constitute a

period of time best described as the first major watershed in

458
the history of Islam. The original synthetic vision of things,
which we see in the early days of the religion, had given way
gradually to the increasing separation between the esoteric
and exoteric domains. The incredible expansion of Islam
through its conquests of vast regions of the known world had
brought millions into the community. This in turn created a
need for the codification of everything necessary to preserve
the integrity of the Faith: ḥadīth-literature, grammar,
pre-Islamic poetry, history, biography, jurisprudence, and a
host of other disciplines were all set down in written works
for the benefit of the newcomers to the Faith and for the
old-timers who needed to be reminded of its articles of belief.
Moreover, numerous sects had arisen in the bosom of the
religion, disputing its articles of belief. Each one of them
claimed to possess the ascetical elect of the community.
Asceticism itself had gotten out of hand and had become a
kind of art for art’s sake. Under such circumstances, the path
was confused with exaggerated asceticism, and in the process
its gnostic goal was threatened with extinction.

Like the others among the ascetics of those early days, the
actual Sufis, whose view of the ṭarīqah was gnostic or
sapiential, wore plain garments made of wool (ṣūf), in
imitation of the Prophet. As time went by and asceticism
(zuhd) began to draw armies of partisans into its ranks, the
sages
of the integral path began to call themselves Sufis and their
discipline taṣawwuf, in order to distinguish themselves and
their Way from the purely ascetic seekers and their
asceticism. The name ṣūfī was confined to those who
preached the total spiritual path, with its aspects of action,
love, and knowledge, but especially knowledge. They thus set
themselves apart from those who practiced asceticism

459
exclusively, which was really a kind of “way of action” and
represented a truncated path. At the same time, because of its
gnostic teachings (its maʿrifah, “gnosis,” as the later Sufis
would say), Sufism also distinguished itself from those
mystical ways that were devotional and nonintellective, the
“way of love” of the devotees (ʿubbād, pl. of ʿābid) of early
Islam. At the risk of imposing an artificial scheme on the
mystical wayfarers of the first century or so of Islam, one
might say that the strictly ascetic types (the zuhhād, pl. of
zāhid) were those who followed the way of action; the ʿubbād
followed the way of love; and the gnostics (ʿārifūn, pl. of
ʿārif, “gnostic”) followed the way of knowledge. In reality,
things were not quite so clear, but the main point to stress is
that the Sufi of those times, by emerging into the full light of
day, proclaimed that the complete path was not only one of
action and love but, above all, of knowledge. Once that point
had been made, the name ṣūfī and its cognates stuck with the
followers of the sapiential way, whether they wore wool or
not.

The second reason for the rise of Sufism lies in the

establishment of the great Sunni schools of jurisprudence
(madhāhib, pl. of madhhab), such as the Ḥanafī, the Mālikī,
the Shāfiʿī, and the Ḥanbalī. None of these existed in
primitive Islam—any more than the term ṣūfī. The schools are
really crystallizations of the Sharīʿah of Islam, its exoteric
domain. The doctors of the Law, the ʿulamāʾ, now come into
their own with the backing of the Abbasid state. This showed
that exoteric Islam had taken on its characteristic features.
That led inevitably to the exteriorization of the
complementary esoteric spiritual dimension of the religion,
which resulted in the surfacing of Sufism, with its own
teachers (the shaykhs, or masters of the path), its own

460
terminology, doctrines, institutions, methods of realization,
and contemplative goals. Exoterism, in other words, provoked
the rise of esoterism, since the two always go together in the
different religions. That is yet another explanation for the
appearance of Sufism in the community.

There is a third reason for the appearance of Sufism, and this

has to do with what was happening within Shīʿism. At this
period, which had already seen a century of Islam’s existence
pass by, six or seven Imams had come and gone. Shīʿism
claimed for its Imams not only a certain infallibility in
political and religious matters but also a kind of exclusive
guardianship over the integral message of the Faith, which, of
course, reduced
everyone else of authority to a peripheral function, including
even the masters of the ṭarīqah. To ensure that no one
confused the path with such Shīʿite conceptions about their
Imams, and to make certain that the existence of the ṭarīqah
was in no way dependent on the Imams alone, Sufism
manifested itself, proclaiming thereby that it contained the
complete spiritual message of Revelation and that its teachers
stood in no need of the continued existence of the Shīʿite
Imams. Indeed, after the seventh and eighth Imams, Mūsā
al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799) and ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818), it is rare
to find much interaction between the remaining Imams of the
Twelver school of Shīʿism and the Sufi sages. The reason is
simple enough: the remaining Imams do not have the
authoritative roles that the early Imams—at least up to the
sixth Imam—exercised over all of Islam. On the contrary,
they are of importance in a restricted Shīʿite sense that no
longer has spiritual repercussions in the Sunni world. The
sixth Imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), had a kind of cosmic
function in the community as a whole which the remaining

461
Imams could not possibly have. It is not by accident that
Sufism comes into the picture with increasing frequency after
his days.

The rise of Islamic philosophical schools also had a role in

bringing Sufism to the fore. The translation of Greek
philosophical texts into Arabic generated a lively interest in
Greek wisdom and this in turn encouraged a kind of rational
enquiry into the tenets of the Faith, which we see in the
Muʿtazilite theologians of early Abbasid times. As a way
having gnostic realization for its goal, Sufism also had to
distinguish itself from the rationalistic schools of the day,
whether Muʿtazilite or purely philosophical, like the
Neoplatonism of the Arab philosopher al-Kindī in the third/
ninth century. Consider that Neoplatonism is a mystical
philosophy calling for intellective identity with the One
through spiritual purification, and it is easy to see how a
purely rational approach to its teachings, without regard to its
gnostic goals, can lead to the cult of rationalism, even though
al-Kindī himself was interested in Sufism. Nevertheless, the
presence of philosophical thinking in Islam, with its reduction
of knowledge to abstract, mental categories, bereft of direct,
spiritual vision of the Real (al-Ḥaqq), no doubt had a hand in
forcing Sufism to present itself as the embodiment of gnostic
realization. This is one reason why, in the third/ninth century,
the term maʿrifah (gnosis) begins to replace the term ʿilm
(knowledge) as the goal of the path; the former means
experiential, direct knowledge, whereas the latter had
gradually lost such meanings and been reduced simply to
mental knowledge, abstract and theoretical.

462
The increasing formalism of the ʿulamāʾ provided a fifth
reason for Sufism to emerge publicly as the path. That
formalism led to the creation
of the schools of jurisprudence, on the one hand, and to the
abusive conclusion that the doctors of the Law were the
unique interpreters of the revealed message, on the other. We
see the gradual reduction of the Islamic message to its
exoteric aspects taking place in the second/eighth century
without any overt or violent opposition on the part of the
newly created schools of Sufism. In truth, that century reveals
only a quiet manifestation of Sufism here and there. We have
only to recall that the Umayyad Dynasty came to an end in
the middle of the century. The religious leaders of Islam had
never been integrated into the Umayyad state for many
reasons, but with the rise of the Abbasid regime things
changed completely. Now the ʿulamāʾ were brought right into
the administrative, juridical, and even executive functions of
the state, wielding a measure of power they had not
previously exercised. With that power came the feeling that
they had a kind of exclusive monopoly on the contents of the
Islamic revelation. Had they been allowed to go along in such
a fashion, with no opposition to their claims, Islam would
have seen something similar to what took place in early
Christianity, when the official church stamped out all spiritual
esoterism that claimed an independent existence for itself. An
awareness of the gradually intensifying formalism of the
ʿulamāʾ can be sensed in the words and deeds of the early
Sufis and is one of the reasons why the Sufi path had to assert
itself and claim that it represented the contemplative message
of Islam, exoterism having only a dogmatic-legalistic version
of the Faith.

463
Finally, if the total spiritual teaching of Islam were not to
disappear altogether, Sufism had to come forward as its
authoritative representative. Exoteric Islam, with its Sharīʿah
and dogmatic-theological positions, was at best only a limited
version of the “way of action,” having entrance into paradise
at death as its goal. Even so, this was not even the ascetical
kind of “way of action” we find in the first century or so of
Islam. Rather, it is simply salvation through works out of fear
of damnation. Nor could the early “way of love” of Islam be
the whole story, for it left out of consideration the possibility
of union or identity with God through the Spirit, the fruit of
the “way of knowledge.” In other words, as time went by, the
originally synthetic message of action, love, and knowledge,
such as we find in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet,
was being progressively reduced by the limitations of men
either to simple devotionalism or to salvation through
observance of the commandments and prohibitions of the
Law. Not only that, but all attempts to go beyond such
confines were sensed by the ʿulamāʾ as innovations, if not as
heresies. Since the majority of the believers were
noncontemplative and not in the least interested in treading
the spiritual path, the law of numbers was on the side of the
ʿulamāʾ, so to speak, who thus had their illusions of being the
sole authorities in Islam reinforced all the more.

Conflicts in the Third/Ninth Century

In the second/eighth century, the relatively peaceful relations

that existed between the religious authorities of the Law (the
ʿulamāʾ) and the spiritual authorities of the path (the shaykhs)
were of such a nature that they could not possibly last forever,
precisely because of the pretensions of the doctors of the
Law. Thus, throughout the third/ninth century, a gradually

464
increasing tension between the two camps becomes evident.
This is not something that could have been averted by the
Sufis, if only because of the mounting resentment of the
exoteric religious authorities, who were themselves looking
for a scrap and for some means to bring about a resolution of
the conflict in their own favor. The hostility that the doctors
of the Law felt toward the Sufis was exacerbated by those
mystics who deliberately provoked the religious chiefs. In the
third/ninth century we find two types of Sufism: there is the
kind that is “sober” and the kind that is “drunk,” to use Sufi
terms. From the sober Sufis, the ʿulamāʾ had little to fear;
they could be counted on to act cooperatively in society and
to align themselves with the general prescriptions of the Law.
It was the Sufi drunks, as it were, who were the bulls in the
china closet and who inspired both repulsion and fear in the
hearts of the religious leaders.

The sober-minded Sufis were the intellectual leaders of the

path. Unlike the previous century, the third/ninth century
witnessed the appearance of a number of important Sufi
works that have lasted down to our times. Among the many
compositions left behind by the Sufi al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/
857), the Riʿāyah li-ḥuqūqi ʾLlāh (The Observance of God’s
Rights) has been a popular spiritual treatise revolving around
self-examination (the name al-Muḥāsibī means “the one who
examines himself”).7 His is a mitigated devotionalism based
on a dialectic that drew fire from the Ḥanbalīs of his day, who
felt that all discursive thinking was somehow related to
Muʿtazilite rationalism.

The most intellectual sage of the epoch was al-Ḥakīm

al-Tirmidhī (d. 285/898), the author of a number of works
seeking to explain the esoteric aspects of Islam, including

465
such realities as sanctity and prophethood, the “seal of
sanctity,” and the like. His all-important work, Kitāb khatm
al-awliyāʾ (The Seal of the Saints), established important
distinctions within the domain of sanctity and had a great
influence on later schools of Sufism. In his works, we see a
more analytical approach to Sufi doctrine, reflecting the
gradual loss of the synthetic view of things characteristic of
earlier times.

Only brief statements or meager works on the inner life have

come down to us from the other Sufis of the day, such as Sarī
al-Saqaṭī (d. 255/871), Bishr al-Ḥāfī (d. 227/842), Ibn Karrām
(d. 257/869), and Dhuʾl-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 245/860), to
mention only a few of the more important names. Around
these and other masters, circles of adepts would form, such as
the Karrāmiyyah around Ibn Karrām. The Sufi meetinghouse,
the khānaqāh (in Persian; zāwiyah in Arabic), which can
already be found in the second/eighth century, now is more
frequently encountered. However, the general style of life of
the Sufi teachers and their disciples remains on the whole
faithful to the more ascetic Sunnah of the Prophet. Still, one
can sense an institutionalized life coming over Sufism just as
one can perceive that the entire Islamic tradition was now
entering into official molds with the establishment of the
schools of jurisprudence and the rise of the great Islamic
civilization in Baghdad and the provincial capitals. Likewise,
there is a tendency in the Sufis of the day to spell out things in
more detail, as we saw in the case of Tirmidhī. Thus,
Dhuʾl-Nūn al-Miṣrī takes pains to associate the path with
gnosis (maʿrifah) in order to bring out more clearly the
mystical experience involved in Sufi knowledge, which the
word ʿilm (knowledge), as was said previously, could not
adequately convey any longer. He also gave a more orderly

466
presentation of the different “stations” (maqāmāt) of the
virtues, which would influence later Sufis.

The other category of Sufis found at that time, the ones

described as “drunk” with spiritual fervor, are best
exemplified by the renowned Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. 261/
874). Whereas in Islam one says Subḥāna-ʾLlāh (“Glory be to
God!”), Abū Yazīd is said to have cried out Subḥānī (“Glory
be to me!”). This is known as an ecstatic expression (shaṭḥ),
and although it is supposedly the less sober-minded Sufis who
give vent to them, in reality one finds even the sober Sufis at
times uttering such expressions, which are always
characterized by their boldness and even scandalous nature.
Throughout the third/ninth century, different Sufis would
utter ecstatic expressions that created powerful reactions
among the ʿulamāʾ, who already were searching for a
showdown with Sufism, which came to them in the person of
al-Ḥallāj.

The Case of al-Ḥallāj

There were different reasons why many of the Sufis of the

third/ninth century engaged in seemingly wild actions or
spoke in scandalous fashion. The Islamic tradition had
become increasingly formalistic, as mentioned previously,
and could have become even more so if allowed to follow its
natural course under the direction of the excessively exoteric
ʿulamāʾ. The latter were concerned merely with the exoteric
message of the religion, which corresponded to their actual
capacity to understand, for the purely spiritual contents of the
Revelation were not part of that understanding. Although the
intensification of formalism had not yet reached the degree
one finds among the rabbinical authorities in the days of

467
Jesus, there were similarities. Just as Jesus had to preach in a
bold and even scandalous manner to break through the rigid
legalism of the Jews with his message of love, so similarly the
Sufis of the third/ninth century had to break through the
hardening shell of exoterism that was more and more in
evidence as time went by if they wanted to draw attention to
the mystical message of Islam. These were intrusions of the
Spirit into the increasingly opaque substance of the
community with a view to illuminating the gathering
darkness. In later ages the same thing would happen again
and again. This first crisis for Islam was of immense
importance, cyclically speaking, because of the attempt by the
exoteric authorities to lay hands on the entire tradition,
including the path. Had they succeeded, the purely exoteric
ʿulamāʾ would have emerged as religious tyrants with no
limits whatsoever to their authority. The resolution of the
crisis came in the execution of the great Sufi al-Ḥallāj by the
ʿulamāʾ of Baghdad in the year 309/922.8

Al-Ḥallāj (“the wool-carder” in Arabic) was a great Persian

Sufi raised in the Arab world of Wāsiṭ, where he perfected his
religious education. When he was still young, his spiritual
tendencies found their home in taṣawwuf and he became the
disciple of a number of masters. He married the daughter of
one of them, and she bore him several children and remained
his sole wife throughout his years. From Basra, where he
established his family, he began his wandering life as a
preacher of Sufism. He performed the pilgrimage to Mecca
three times, traveled all the way to India and Turkestan,
teaching people union with God through love and knowledge.
Eventually he made Baghdad his home, taught in the streets
and markets of the city, and incurred the hostility of the
religious authorities in the process. He was arrested and

468
imprisoned for some nine years. Finally, after an irregular
trial, he was sentenced to death on charges of heresy.
Subjected to a terrible scourging, the amputation of his limbs,
and exposure on a gibbet, he was finally beheaded, his body
burned and his ashes strewn over the Tigris. His mystical
poetry remains his only literary legacy of importance.

Unlike Rābiʿat al-ʿAdawiyyah, in the second/eighth century,

whose “way of love” (maḥabbah) was serene and lucid, the
“way of love” of al-Ḥallāj, which was also combined with
gnosis, was dramatic and stormy in its outward
manifestations. His life is a kind of recapitulation, within the
framework of Sunni Islam, of the life of Jesus. Both were
aware of their
sacrificial mission; both knew what awaited them as a result
of divulging the mysteries of the path; and both were
subjected to public humiliation, beating, and execution. The
role of the founder of Christianity is obviously greater, for
cosmic reasons, than that of al-Ḥallāj; yet the two figures are
similar in that their lives unfolded in the midst of
communities heavily weighed down by religious legalism.
The only difference is that the mystical side of Judaism was
moribund when Jesus preached, while taṣawwuf in Islam was
alive in the days of al-Ḥallāj. But if Sufism was then alive, it
was nevertheless extremely prudent, as we see in the case of
al-Junayd (d. 298/910),9 not to mention other eminent Sufis
of the day, who joined in the condemnation of al-Ḥallāj. They
condemned him because he preached the inner secrets of
taṣawwuf to the people at large. The famous ecstatic phrase of
al-Ḥallāj, anaʾl-Ḥaqq (“I am the Truth”; al-Ḥaqq meaning
also “God” or “the Real”), was an example, in their eyes, of
his immoderate fervor.

469
The life and death of al-Ḥallāj resulted in the clarification of
the spiritual atmosphere of the community, more or less as a
bolt of lightning purifies the air. With al-Ḥallāj, the
downward, heavy tendencies of the religious formalism of his
day were temporarily arrested, which allowed everyone to see
that there was more to Islam than the prescriptions of the
ʿulamāʾ. It is true that al-Ḥallāj does not represent normative
Sufism, while his great teacher al-Junayd, with his sober
esoterism, embodies the harmonious, discreet, and prudent
Sufism of the perennial sort. But it is also true that, at that
particular juncture in the history of Islam, normative Sufism
could not by itself have brought about the spiritual
reorientation engendered by the public martyrdom of
al-Ḥallāj. His anaʾl-Ḥaqq was a divulgation of the supreme
mystery embedded in tawḥīd, and his entire life as a Sufi was
a direct celestial unveiling of the priority of the Spirit over the
Law and its guardians. Nothing less than this—including the
sacrificial immolation of al-Ḥallāj—could have arrested the
powerful sanhedrinism of the times.

Reconciliation between the Law and the Path

By the beginning of the fourth/tenth century, Sufism was

evident everywhere in the Muslim world and was
synonymous with the ṭarīqah. The head-on collision between
the doctors of the Law and Sufism, which resulted in the
execution of al-Ḥallāj, had served to show just how limited
Islamic exoterism was and just how perfidious its
representatives could be when left to their own devices. In
other words, exoterism as such could not stand on its own two
feet independently of all spiritual influences coming from
taṣawwuf without this leading in the end to the

470
impoverishment of the religion and even to its eventual
demise.

It was therefore necessary to point that out to the community

with a kind of reconciliation between the Law and the path,
which we see in the Sufi manual, Qūt al-qulūb (The
Nourishment of Hearts), written by Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d.
380/990). This work has since become a well-known treatise
circulating not only in Sufi milieus but also among the
non-Sufi pious elements of Islam. Al-Makkī belonged to the
developed Sālimiyyah school of taṣawwuf founded by one of
the masters of al-Ḥallāj, Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896),10 but
named after his disciple Muḥammad ibn Sālim (d. 297/909).
In the Qūt, al-Makkī sought to do what al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/
1111) would attempt later on in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The
Revival of the Religious Sciences), namely, to put down in
writing what characterized the Law and the path. That
al-Makkī’s reconciliation between the two was not definitive
is clear from the later reconciliation written by al-Ghazzālī.
There would even be much later reconciliations, such as that
of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 561/1166), in his al-Ghunyah
(The Self-Sufficient); but all of this is understandable, given
the natural tendency of exoterism to become embroiled in the
world of forms and prescriptions and to shut out, as a result,
the light of the Spirit.

By the fourth/tenth century, likewise, we notice the end of the

primordial epoch of Islam. The rise of theological schools,
especially that of Ashʿarism and Māturīdism, the integration
of Greek philosophy into the intellectual life of the
community in the form of falsafah, as we see in the Rasāʾil
(Treatises) of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-ṣafāʾ), and
the development of all sorts of cosmological and scientific

471
disciplines in the midst of the great Islamic civilization of the
times meant that the primordial style of Sufism and its simple
Quranic atmosphere could no longer be maintained.
Neoplatonic thinking, now Islamicized, circulated everywhere
among the cultivated classes.11 The masters of Sufism had to
take this into account when expounding the doctrines of the
path. Although this would not change the essence of Sufism,
it would change some of its formulations, in the sense that
now they would become much more scholastic in expression.

One last example of the archaic Sufi style is to be found in the

works of al-Niffarī (fl. in the middle of the fourth/tenth
century), from Niffar, in Iraq. His works, the Mawāqif
(Stoppings) and Mukhāṭabāt (Addresses), written down as
inspirations that came to him, are unique in the history of
Sufism and even of Islam in general. They are written in a
style that has no precedent in Arabic and that resembles more
the prophetic biblical style of the Hebrew Bible than Quranic
eloquence. In content, they are almost exclusively
conversations of Divine Origin addressed to al-Niffarī during
his itinerant life. They are, in effect, direct “revelations,”
although Sufism eschews using the word “revelation” in such
a context for fear of reducing
the prestige of the Quranic Revelation, and prefers instead to
use the term “inspirations” (ilhāmāt). The content of these
“divine utterances” is pure gnosis (maʿrifah); very little is
said of the Sharīʿah, the emphasis being on the contemplative
nature of the path. This is the “way of knowledge” in its most
rigorous aspect, and it is easy to see why Niffarī, even in the
Sufi tradition, has not been widely known. His fame has been
confined mostly to the strictly gnostic circles of the path; the
less gnostic types, who are in the majority, tend to ignore him
precisely because of his rather impersonal spirituality.

472
Once the developing conflict between the doctors of the Law
and the Sufi adepts had been brought to a head with the
martyrdom of al-Ḥallāj, it was necessary not only to reconcile
the Sharīʿah and the ṭarīqah but also to record the names and
sayings of the Sufi saints instrumental in transmitting
taṣawwuf. This would allow the intelligent and pious Muslims
to see for themselves who were the actual authorities in the
esoteric tradition of Islam. The first work to do this was the
book entitled Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf
(The Presentation of the Doctrine of the Sufis) by Muḥammad
al-Kalābādhī (d. 385/995), which listed the important Sufis of
earlier times and gave their statements on different aspects of
the path.12 Its brevity and comprehensiveness won for it wide
acceptance in the Muslim world. Although it did not have the
fullness of the Kitāb al-lumaʿ (Book of Flashes) of Abū Naṣr
al-Ṣarrāj (d. 378/988) nor the elegant Arabic of the more
technical Qūt al-qulūb of al-Makkī, the Taʿarruf did have the
virtues of simplicity and aptness. Its definitions of key terms
in Sufism would continue a practice that is found in the works
of third/ninth century Sufis. Later on, the famous Sufi work,
the Risālah (Treatise) of al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), would
carry on this important task of defining the corpus of
technical terms common to the esoteric Sufi way.13 Others,
likewise, would refer back to the sayings of the earlier Sufi
authorities, as we see in the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyyah (The Classes
of the Sufis) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), in
order to establish the historical identity of the path across the
centuries.

It remained, however, for al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111), in the

fifth/eleventh century, to put all of these different Sufi
currents together in a definitive fashion.14 Plagued by doubts
and uncertainties after he had reached eminence as a

473
theologian and religious authority in Baghdad, he sought to
still his heart in Sufism, as he explains in his spiritual
autobiography, Al-Munqidh min al-dalāl (The Redeemer from
Error).15 After his enlightenment in the Sufi path, he wrote
his famous Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The Revival of the Religious
Sciences), in which he presented the integrality of the Islamic
religion
as being both the Sharīʿah and the ṭarīqah. In lucid Arabic
with Quranic verses, ḥadīths, and colorful anecdotes drawn
from the lives of the Sufi saints and other pious figures, and
in a masterfully well-organized fashion, al-Ghazzālī describes
the illuminative knowledge of the path, which confers
immediate certitude and graces, as the very summit of the
believer’s life. In brief, the Sharīʿah did not suffice unto
itself, nor did the religious authorities have any competence in
the affairs of the ṭarīqah, which was the domain of the Sufi
shaykhs. After his day, it would not be easy for any
knowledgeable religious scholar to reject the ṭarīqah without
exposing his ignorance about the spiritual contents of the
Islamic message. All that the future critics of Sufism, like the
Ḥanbalī theologian Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200), could do was
to criticize particular Sufis or some of their teachings, but not
the path itself. That was due largely to the extremely effective
critique of the ʿulumāʾ of Islam made by al-Ghazzālī in his
Iḥyāʾ, which remains to this day an extraordinarily clear
account of the complete teaching of the Islamic revelation by
a saintly sage who knew how to write for the intelligent and
pious circles of the Islamic world in a way that would become
a model for later generations. Summing up the Islam of the
first four centuries, he also set down its general contours for
the traditional Muslim of medieval and later times. With
al-Ghazzālī the early Sufi tradition comes to a close, as it
were, and a door is opened unto a new epoch, that of the great

474
Sufi orders (ṭuruq, pl. of ṭarīqah, which means both the
general “spiritual path” and a specific “Sufi order,” like the
Qādiriyyah or Shādhiliyyah). Not long after al-Ghazzālī died
(505/1111), the renowned Sufi ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d.
561/1166), founder of the Qādiriyyah, would be preaching in
Baghdad, but that would be a new age in the history of
taṣawwuf.

Conclusions on the Early Period of Sufism

Enough of the Sufi doctrines and practices are revealed in the

early mystical works to permit the reader to discern in them a
tendency toward greater and greater precision and detail as
time went by. From the simple remarks of the second/
eighth-century Sufis to the Iḥyāʾ of al-Ghazzālī, there is an
inclination in the Sufi tradition to divulge more and more of
the actual teachings of the way. This corresponds to an
increasing need for more explanation on the part of the
seekers of the way. In the collections of the words of the early
Sufis, we find only suggestive spiritual statements (ishārāt),
rather concise and allusive; perhaps their private instruction
was more developed. Later, however, the statements become
more analytical. We can only assume that the masters found it
expedient to reveal more and
more of the oral instruction of Sufism because only in this
way could a convincing case be made to those who were full
of the questions raised by the urban culture of early Islam as it
absorbed Greek and other forms of wisdom. By the fifth/
eleventh century, Sufism had long been an institutional part of
the Islamic world and had its own societal structures, its own
authorities, and its own hierarchies. Nothing would be further
from the truth than to imagine that the Sufis were more or less

475
exotic or isolated figures; all of the eminent Sufis were often
surrounded by great numbers of disciples.

A striking aspect of Sufism as it develops on the historical

scene from its appearance in the second/eighth century on is
the amazing richness and variety of its teachings and
practices. This is quite evident in the innumerable and often
contradictory definitions the early and later Sufis gave to
simple technical terms of the path, like trust (tawakkul),
patience (ṣabr), remembrance (dhikr), and the like.16 The
underlying spiritual reality of a term is always sensed as one,
but its expressions in language can be diverse and even
contradictory. Thus, the basic elements of the path that we
find already in the Quran and the Sunnah, namely, the
doctrine of the Divine Unity (tawḥīd), the remembrance of
God (dhikr Allāh), the initiatic pact (bayʿah), and the
aesthetic Sunnah of the Prophet, remain essentially the same
throughout the history of early—and even later—Sufism.
Some of these elements undergo elaboration from the simple
to the complex or from the synthetic to the more analytical.
Tawḥīd, for instance, is capable of extraordinary diversity and
complexity of formulation without, for all that, losing its
essential oneness of nature. Similarly, the dhikr can be
manifested in a variety of forms derived from the Quranic
Revelation, these forms depending on the perspectives of the
different Sufi schools, the inspirations of particular masters,
and other conditions; but this variegated manifestation in no
way detracts from the fundamental character of the dhikr.
Consequently, the elements of the ṭarīqah remain the same
after the days of the Prophet, to be sure, but their
combinations and expressions can vary from master to
master—and even within the lifetime of one master. Indeed, it
would seem that one of the important functions of Sufism has

476
been to furnish these elements of the path to its seekers in the
right proportions and in accordance with the needs of each
generation.

In the final analysis, what is called the development of Sufism

is really the history of the formal expressions of the
above-mentioned elements by the teachers of the path. This is
but another way of saying that the transcendent Reality
(al-Ḥaqīqah), although It is transhistorical and even
nontemporal in Its nature, is forever intruding Itself, through
the intermediary of the
eminent Sufi masters, into this world of time and space—this
world of history—in order to keep alive the spiritual message
of tawḥīd.

Notes

1. A contemporary spiritual view of the Sufi path that reveals

the perennial value of Sufism is to be found in M. Lings,
What is Sufism? (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1981).

2. A summary of these early teachings of Sufism is found in

the classic Persian work by ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb,
trans. R. A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1911).

3. L. Massignon situates Sufism in its Quranic roots, ascribing

indirectly to the Islamic Revelation an esoteric dimension not
previously recognized in the West (Essai sur les origines du
lexique technique de la mystique musulmane [rev. ed.; Paris:
J. Vrin, 1968]).

477
4. The relations between the spiritual life of Islam and its art
have been convincingly displayed in T. Burckhardt, The Art
of Islam (London: Festival of the World of Islam, 1976).

5. Some silsilahs can be found in O. Depont and X.

Coppolani, Les Confréries religieuses musulmanes (Algiers:
A. Jourdan, 1897).

6. See Margaret Smith, Rābiʿah the Mystic and Her

Fellow-Saints in Islam (Cambridge: University Press, 1928).

7. In his Kitāb al-tawahhum fī waṣf aḥwāl al-ākhirah (trans.

A. Roman as Une vision humaine des fins dernières [Paris:
Klincksieck, 1978]), al-Muḥāsibī reveals how the fear of the
hereafter can be integrated into the way.

8. The life of this great sage has been written by L.

Massignon in The Passion of al-Hallāj: Mystic and Martyr of
Islam, trans. H. Mason (4 vols.; Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1982).

9. His views on al-Ḥallāj are to be found in The Passion of

al-Hallāj, vol. 1, pp. 125–27.

10. See G. Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in

Classical Islam: The Qurʾanic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl
Al-Tustarī (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1980).

11. Sufism had by now affected even the profane literature of

the epoch, as we can see in the fifth/eleventh-century prose
work by Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, al-Ishārāt al-ilāhiyyah
(Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfah, 1973), a series of prayers and

478
supplications done with literary grace but without the real
depth of the Sufis.

12. Al-Kalābādhī, Muḥammad, Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab

ahl al-taṣawwuf, trans. A. J. Arberry as The Doctrine of the
Sufis (Cambridge: University Press, 1935).

13. The Manāzil al-sāʾirīn of Khwājah ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣārī

(d. 481/1089), trans. S. de Beaurecueil as Les étapes des
itinérants vers Dieu (Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français
d’archéologie orientale, 1962), is an important Sufi technical
work with a Ḥanbalī coloration.

14. See W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of

al-Ghazālī (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953).

15. Al-Ghazzālī, Abū Ḥāmid, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, trans.

R. J. McCarthy as Freedom and Fulfillment (Boston: Twayne,
1980).

16. B. Reinart examines one of these virtues, trust (tawakkul),

in Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1968), which shows the richness of meaning that
apparently simple words in Sufism can have.

479
480
 14

The Spiritual Practices of Sufism

JEAN-LOUIS MICHON

The Mystical Quest in Islam: Scriptural and Historical

Roots

IT HAS ALREADY BEEN SHOWN HOW ISLAM has as its

first pillar of faith the affirmation of Divine Unity and how
this is expressed through the profession of faith, the
Shahādah, which makes up the dominant theme of the
Quranic Revelation. The Quran repeats unceasingly that God
is One without equal, All-Powerful, that He created the world,
that He is the Lord of the worlds, the Lord of the Last
Judgment, that to Him all things return, that nothing occurs
without His Will and that everything except Him is doomed
to disappear. Between this all-powerful, transcendent, infinite
God and the ephemeral, imperfect, and limited creature is
there a possible connection? All religions have provided an
answer to this fundamental question, and it is affirmative,
seeing, as the word religion itself implies, the existence of a
bond between the creature and the Creator, religion being that
which “binds” (religat) man to God. From one religion to
another that which varies is not, therefore, the existence of a
liaison between heaven and earth, which is universally
recognized, but the modalities through which this bond is
realized, actualized. This realization can never, obviously, be
man’s doing. God alone, Who created the human being

481
according to certain modalities, with the limitations that make
him what he is, can deliver him and efface his individual and
separate nature. What man can do, however, is to collaborate
with Divine Action through his intelligence and his will to
efface himself, to make room in his heart for the descent of
grace, of spiritual intuitions.

In a famous teaching, the Prophet Muḥammad defined very

precisely the type of relationship that is set up between the
effort of man and Divine
Action.1 On that day the Prophet was surrounded by
numerous companions and in this assembly a young man
dressed in white appeared whom the Prophet recognized as
the archangel Gabriel. This young man posed three
consecutive questions to the Prophet corresponding to the
various stages of penetrating into the meaning of religion
(al-dīn). By the answers he gave to the archangel, the Prophet
defined these three stages: (1) al-islām, voluntary submission;
(2) al-īmān, faith; and (3) al-iḥsān, perfect virtue, excellence.
In defining islām the Prophet explained that it consisted of
respecting the five pillars which constitute the Muslim
religion, that is, witnessing to Divine Unity and the
authenticity of Muḥammad’s mission, prayer, the fast of
Ramaḍān, legal tithing, and pilgrimage. Therefore, it is the
stage of exterior religion, of submission and obedience, that
which asks one to know the prescriptions of the Sacred Law
and to conform to them. The second stage, that of faith, marks
a more advanced step in religious experience. It is no loner a
question of a simple act of obedience but rather of a grace
which enters the heart and makes one recognize the
foundations of the revealed prescriptions and adhere inwardly
to them with fervor and clarity. As for the third stage, it
implies a total commitment of the body, the soul, and the

482
spirit. It entails not only respect for outer prescriptions, not
only inner faith, but in addition to these a total disengagement
from worldly concerns at all times and an openness to that
which God wills. The man who has come to the stage of iḥsān
is, in a way, no longer in possession of himself. In fact,
according to the words of the Prophet to the archangel
Gabriel, this stage of perfect virtue consists “of adoring Allah
as though thou didst see Him, and if thou dost not see him He
nonetheless seeth thee.” The man who is in a state of iḥsān,
the muḥsin, is truly the khalīfah, the vicegerent of God on
earth. He rediscovers “the most beautiful form” in which he
was created (according to the Quran XCV, 4), because his
heart is like a pure, well-polished mirror in which the Divine
can be reflected. Leading man back to this station is the goal
of Sufi practices.2

Another Quranic idea that plays a fundamental role in the

mystical quest is that of being completely at God’s disposal,
the equivalent of the vacare Deo of Christian mystics, an idea
that is translated by the Arabic word faqr, meaning literally
“poverty.” From faqr comes the word faqīr, a term that, like
its Persian equivalent, darwīsh, means “poor” and serves to
designate the Muslim mystic. A verse of the Quran says, “O
men, you are the poor (al-fuqarāʾ, plural of faqīr) before God;
He is the Rich!” (XXXV, 15). This saying has an obvious
literal meaning; that is, it affirms the infinity of Divine
Plenitude and, in the light of this richness, the state of man’s
dependence and his utter indigence. But this verse also
contains an exhortation and a promise, because it is, in fact, in
becoming aware of his impoverished
condition and in drawing all the conclusions that this implies
that man realizes the virtue of humility, that he empties
himself of all pretentions including that of existing “at the

483
side” of God or, in the words of the Christian evangelists, that
he passes through that narrow gate through which the rich
cannot pass and which leads to the kingdom of God (Matthew
7:13ff.; Luke 13:23ff.). Such is truly the stripping away to
which the mystics, the fuqarāʾ, aspire, and it is no different in
this regard from that of the Christian anchorites of the desert
or of the poverello, that is, Saint Francis of Assisi. This same
diminutive, moreover, exists in Arabic, where the name
al-fuqayr (the little poor one), was used for centuries by
several Sufis.

According to generally accepted etymology, the word ṣūfī

itself is derived from ṣūf, meaning “white wool,” because the
clothing made of white wool, which was particularly liked by
the Prophet and by the early disciples who wished to follow
his example, very soon became a symbol of ascetic
renunciation and orientation toward the contemplative life. A
mystic from Baghdad, Sumnūn (d. 303/915), defined Sufi in
this way: “The Sufi is he who possesses nothing and is
possessed by nothing.” This definition alludes to two kinds of
poverty. The first, “to possess nothing,” designates material
poverty; it is never considered an absolute condition for
coming to God but is a means, often very useful and even
necessary, of achieving inner purification. The second kind of
poverty, “to be possessed by nothing,” is imperative, because
it implies the detachment from passions, from desires in
which the soul is engrossed and which prevent God from
penetrating man’s innermost heart.

This observation concerning the wool clothing worn by the

Sufis, from which they take their name, provides the
opportunity to underline how inherent mysticism is in the
Muslim religion and how it has been since the beginnings of

484
Islam. Sufism is not, as some would like to have it believed,
something that superimposed itself onto primitive Islam and
conferred on it, as a later addition, a dimension that was
lacking in the original. In fact, as seen in chapter 13 of this
volume, this profound dimension is present in all the pages of
the Quran in innumerable verses which teach, for example,
that God is near to man, “nearer to him than his jugular vein”
(L, 16); that “He is the best and the most beautiful
recompense” (LXXIII, 20); that He illuminates the hearts of
those who invoke Him morning and night with humility,
veneration, and love; that He shelters His friends from fear
and sadness. In other words, God loves to communicate
directly through His Word and to provide the means for
drawing nearer to Him. And that which He does not state
explicitly in the Quran He makes known through His
Messenger, whose words and deeds make up the commentary
and the illustration of the revealed message.

By his personality, by his teaching, by the virtues he

exemplified, the Prophet Muḥammad was the first Sufi, the
model that would inspire mystics for all the generations to
come. It is from the prophetic tradition, the Sunnah, that the
Sufis draw much of the directives and counsels which, at all
times and in all circumstances, aid the seeker of God in
realizing the ideal of faqr, spiritual poverty. Even before
receiving the Quranic message, Muḥammad had made
numerous retreats in the mountains around Mecca, especially
in the cave on Mount Ḥirāʾ where the angel of Revelation
came to him for the first time, and it is certainly because his
soul was already a clear mirror capable of reflecting the truths
of heaven that God chose this man in particular to entrust
with the prophetic mission.

485
The history of the beginnings of Islam teaches us also that
among the first companions were found several individuals of
great spiritual scope, in particular Abū Bakr and ʿAlī and the
group of ascetics called “the People of the Bench” (ahl
al-ṣuffah). These people were among the very first emigrants
to abandon everything in Mecca in order to follow the
Prophet to Medina. They occupied a kind of bench at the
entrance to the mosque of the Prophet in Medina, where they
spent the greater part of the day and the night, having no other
home and preferring to live in this place where they could be
near the Prophet and benefit from his teaching as often as
possible. To this group in particular belonged the celebrated
traditionist Abū Hurayrah, “the father of the little she-cat,”
whose prodigious memory recorded several thousands of the
sayings of the Prophet, and also Bilāl, the black African, who,
after having been tortured in Mecca for converting to Islam,
was saved in the nick of time by Abū Bakr, who ransomed
him from his torturers. Bilāl was later to become the first
muezzin of Islam.

If, over the course of the centuries, Muslim mysticism

showed itself capable of integrating the doctrinal perspectives
and the elements of spiritual techniques belonging to other
cultures—for example, to Neoplatonic Hellenism, to
Byzantine Christianity, to the Mazdeism of ancient Iran,
indeed, to Hinduism and Buddhism—such a capacity for
assimilation, far from showing a lack of originality or
deficiency, proves rather the vitality of the way of the Sufis.
Moreover, it proves the universality of the mystical quest, that
which Frithjof Schuon has so justly named “the transcendent
unity of religions.”3

Human Effort and Divine Effusion

486
The Muslim mystic, the ṣūfī, does not passively wait for grace
to come to illumine him, even if the coming of this light is
always regarded as a spontaneous gift from God. Among the
innumerable definitions that have been
given to Sufism (al-taṣawwuf), many put in perspective its
operative aspects—the fact that it is a path requiring a strong
adhesion of the intelligence and a strong exertion of the will.4
Thus, Maʿrūf al-Karkhī (d. 200/813), who was probably the
first to define Sufism, said, “Sufism means seizing realities
and renouncing that which is between the hands of the created
beings.”5 It is an opening, therefore, of the spirit and the heart
which leads to gnosis and makes man “one who knows
through God” (al-ʿārif biʾLlāh) and is a purification of the
soul which renders it free for the manifestation of its Lord by
emptying it of futile preoccupations, worldly passions, and
selfish desires. Often, the order of the terms is inverted, and
one speaks of first emptying the human “recipient”
(al-āniyyah), the individual “mold” (al-qālib), so that the
Divine Presence—the elixir of life, the wine of
knowledge—can penetrate within.

It is also in this way that the celebrated theosopher Abū

Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (Algazel, d. 505/1111) described the
journey of the Sufis:

They begin by combatting their unworthy qualities, cutting their ties to the
world, directing all of their thoughts towards God; this is the good method. If
someone succeeds at it, Divine Mercy is shed on him, the mystery of the
Divine Kingdom is revealed and Reality is shown to him. The only effort on
the part of the mystic consists in preparing himself by purification and
concentration, while maintaining a sincere will, from absorbing desire and
then awaiting the hoped-for mercy on the part of God. . . . “Whoever belongs
to God, God belongs to him.”6

487
This last formula, in its conciseness, reaffirms the whole
doctrine of ittiḥād, the union between the creature and the
Creator, which is, for the Sufi, a concrete possibility, because
he knows that nothing, in reality, is separate from God and
exists outside of Him. In addition, it sums up the two
complementary and inseparable fundamental aspects of the
journey of the mystic: (1) to realize that he belongs to God,
that he is completely dependent in relation to Him, the
Powerful, who subsists in Himself; and (2) to welcome in his
purified substratum the theophanies of the Names and
Attributes of the Divinity, the ineffable Presence of the
Generous, the Dispenser of every grace (al-Karīm,
al-Wahhāb). The first action includes a voluntary element, the
gift of self, the battle of the believer for God’s cause “with his
possessions and his soul,” according to an oft-repeated
Quranic injunction (IV, 94; IX 21, 42, 82; XXI, 11, etc.). As
for the second move—that of God giving Himself to man—it
can only be the result of a supernatural blessing, a
spontaneous unveiling, illuminating the innermost heart with
a light which is not of this world and in which man recognizes
his true nature.

The desire to achieve the state of ideal poverty and inner

detachment,
which is the prelude to union with God and its necessary
condition, is not for everyone. More often such an aspiration
is manifested after years of assiduous practice of religion in
its ordinary sense; but it can also occur as a sudden and
irresistible event. That is why, if the religious Law, the
Sharīʿah, is obligatory for all people without exception—or at
least for all the members of the Islamic community—the
spiritual path, the ṭarīqah, does not make the same claim.
That is to say, it is only for those who are predisposed and

488
called to set out on the great adventure which is the quest for
the Divine.

The Way of Poverty (al-ṭarīqah)

The way that traverses the infinite distance separating man

from God is called the ṭarīqah, a term that means two things.
On the one hand, it means the mystical journey in
general—that is to say, the sum of the teachings and the
practical rules that have been drawn from the Quran, the
prophetic Sunnah, and the experience of spiritual masters. On
the other hand, in a more limited sense, the word ṭarīqah (pl.
ṭuruq) signifies a brotherhood or a particular order of Sufis
and usually bears a name derived from that of the founder of
this order: for example, ṭarīqah qādiriyyah, founded by ʿAbd
al-Qādir al-Jīlānī; ṭarīqah mawlawiyyah, founded by
Mawlānā (“our master”) Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī; or ṭarīqah
shādhiliyyah, founded by Imam Abuʾl-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī. In a
certain sense, these ṭuruq can be compared with what in
Christianity are called the “third orders,” those that do not
require vows of celibacy or conventional reclusion but aim at
an ideal that is akin to that of the monastic orders.

Initiation

The Persian Sufi Hujwīrī (fifth/eleventh century) explained

that in order to know if one possesses a true mystical
predisposition it is necessary that one feel ready to do three
things: (1) to serve people, that is, to know how to place
oneself at the rank of a servant and to consider each person a
master; (2) to serve God, that is, to cut one’s ties with
everything that concerns one’s present life and even one’s
future life, because whoever hopes to gain something by

489
serving God is, in reality, serving his own ego; and (3) to
know how to guard his own heart, to maintain it in a state of
fervent concentration, in a communion through which the
servant proves his desire to devote himself exclusively to the
Lord.7

When these conditions are realized, the aspirant to the

mystical path, the
ṭālib, can ask to be admitted into a Sufi order by performing
an act of obedience to a spiritual master, the shaykh (literally
“the old one”), murshid (guide) or pīr (Persian equivalent of
shaykh). That which the master confers is, first, the initiatic
link, the affiliation with the lineage of masters who have
succeeded uninterruptedly since the Prophet Muḥammad,
transmitting both the influence of blessings (barakah,
sakīnah) necessary for the “greater battle” (al-jihād al-akbar)
against the inner enemies and the spiritual means appropriate
for this battle.

The ritual of affiliation can vary according to initiatic lineage.

Most often, it reenacts the handshakes (muṣāfaḥah) given by
the Prophet to the companions when they sealed the covenant
of Ḥudaybiyyah with him under the tree, promising to remain
faithful to their commitment to serve God and His Prophet
under all circumstances. While renewing this solemn promise
(ʿahd, bayʿah), the shaykh, holding in his hand the hand of
the neophyte, recites the tenth verse of the sura of victory:
“Those who swear fealty to thee swear fealty in truth to God;
God’s hand is over their hands. Then whosoever breaks his
oath breaks it but to his own hurt; and whoso fulfils his
covenant made with God, God will give him a mighty wage”
(XLVIII, 10). Frequently at this moment the disciple receives
a name that is added to the name that he already bears, and

490
this becomes the symbol of his second birth into the world of
the Spirit.

In certain ṭuruq, the initiatic charge is transmitted by means

of a cloak (khirqah) with which the shaykh covers the
shoulders of the disciple.8 This cloak might be a patched tunic
(muraqqaʿah), as among the Darqāwā of Morocco, who thus
display their disdain of exterior riches. Other ritual objects,
such as prayer beads or pages on which litanies (awrād)
particular to the ṭarīqah have been transcribed, are often
given to the new faqīr at the time of his initiation.

Upon completing the rite of aggregation, which generally

takes place during a collective prayer gathering, the fuqarāʾ
greet their new fellow disciple one by one and recite in unison
the Fātiḥah, the sura that opens the Quran, so as to commend
him for divine solicitude. Sometimes the gathering closes
with a communal meal, which seals the entry of the new
member into the family in which the shaykh is the father and
all the fuqarāʾ are brothers, ikhwān (sg. akh).

The Spiritual Master

Connection to a master is considered a condition sine qua non

for spiritual success. Without a master, without a guide, all
illusions and all distractions are to be feared. This is what is
meant by the well-known Sufi adage “He
who does not have a shaykh has Satan for his shaykh.” The
true master is, of course, one who has himself already
traversed the path, who knows its route, its pitfalls, and its
dangers, so that he can guide others. When a disciple has been
accepted by a master, he must place himself entirely in his
hands and become, according to the saying, “like a corpse in

491
the hands of the body-washer.” The goal of this submission is
the total effacement of the ego, the psychic death, which
signals the true birth into the spiritual life.

To illustrate what the relationship between a disciple and his

master is, one can refer to the disclosures made by the “very
great master” (al-shaykh al-akbar) Ibn ʿArabī, who was born
in 560/1165 in Murcia and died in Damascus in 638/1240 and
who left in his Risālat al-quds (Epistle on Sanctity) animated
descriptions of the spiritual masters whom he had visited in
Andalusia during the first part of his life.9 Ibn ʿArabī speaks,
for example, of his master Abū Yaʿqūb al-Qūmī and says of
him:

He was much given to private devotions and always gave alms in secret. He
honoured the poor and humbled the rich, ministering in person to the needs of
the destitute. . . . He was seldom seen without a frown on his face, but when
he saw a poor man his face would light up with joy; I have even seen him
take one of the poor into his lap. . . . When I would sit before him or before
others of my Shaykhs, I would tremble like a leaf in the wind, my voice
would become weak and my limbs would shake.

Another famous and convincing example of the fruits born by

submission to a master is that of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, founder of
the order of whirling dervishes and one of the greatest
spiritual masters the world has ever known. He abandoned his
position as professor and the honors he had received in Konya
to follow the spiritual teaching of the mysterious Shams
al-Dīn Tabrīzī and reached, through love of this master and
annihilation in him (al-fanāʾ fiʾl-shaykh), the highest peaks of
Divine Love and contemplative vision.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr has recently defined the function of the

spiritual master as follows:

492
The role of the spiritual master, the shaykh, murshid, or pīr, as he is known in
Arabic, Persian and other Muslim languages, is to make this spiritual rebirth
and transformation possible. Being himself connected through the chain of
initiation (silsilah) to the Prophet and to the function of initiation (wilāyah)
inherent in the prophetic mission itself, the Sufi master is able to deliver man
from the narrow confines of the material world into the illimitable luminous
space of the spiritual life. . . . To behold the perfect master is to regain the
ecstasy and joy of the spring of life and to be separated from the master is to
experience the sorrow of old age. . . . To become initiated into a Sufi order
and to accept the discipleship of a master is to enter into a bond that is
permanent, surviving even death.10

Nasr says further:

Man may seek the fountain of life by himself. He may seek to discover the
principles of spiritual regeneration through his own efforts. But this endeavor
is in vain and will never bear fruit unless the master is present together with
the discipline which only he can impart. Without the philosopher’s stone no
alchemical transformation is possible. Only the power of the shaykh can
deliver man from himself—from his carnal soul—so as to enable him to
behold the Universe as it really is and to rejoin the sea of Universal
Existence.11

Good Company (al-ṣuḥbah)

When he joins a brotherhood, the murīd, the disciple,

finds—apart from a master—companions, brothers who, like
him, walk on the path of God. The companionship of these
brothers gives numerous opportunities for mutual
encouragement in the devout life and the practice of the
virtues—that is, humility, generosity, and equanimity, which
lift from the heart the burdens weighing on it and, at the same
time, embellish it, because they are the reflection of the
Divine Qualities and are, according to the honored saying,
“the tongues which glorify the Lord.”

493
In a treatise on Sufism in which he devotes a chapter to the
company of the master and to brotherhood with the fellow
disciples, Shaykh Shihāb al-dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d.
Baghdad 632/1234–35), founder of the Suhrawardiyyah
order, which is widespread in the Orient and reaches as far as
India, teaches:

[The faqīr must] abandon any idea of ownership, live in good understanding
with his brothers . . . love them . . . show himself to be generous and mindful
of the words of the Prophet: “Give to whomever asks, even if he is mounted
on a horse,” be affable, kind of an equal temperament . . . ; show a smiling
face . . . , not be underhanded and permit no one other than the shaykh to
elicit confidences; observe the greatest justice towards one’s brothers . . . ;
maintain a correct balance between excessive austerity and penitence and a
too easy life.12

Good company thus becomes the very token of spiritual

success. Aḥmad ibn ʿAjībah, master of the
Shādhiliyyah-Darqāwiyyah ṭarīqah (d. A.D. 1809), stated in a
letter to a disciple:

The fruit borne through companionship with men of God is the realization of
the station of attainment (taḥqīq maqām al-wiṣāl); and the attainment is that
of extinction in the Essence (al-fanāʾ fiʾl-dhāt), the station of perfect
accomplishment (iḥsān), the station of contemplative vision wherein the
existant is extinguished and only the source of all Existence remains. . . . If,
while living in company with men of God, someone does not succeed in
reaching this station, it is because of a deficiency in him, either his aspiration
(himmah) is weak, or his zeal (qarīḥah) has grown cold, or he has committed
an error which causes him to be content with his present state.13

In another letter the same master writes:

It is necessary either that the disciple find the time to get together with his
brothers where he is or that he go live near them, or that he visit them
frequently in order to know the sweetness of the path and to drink at the
springs of realization. Then he will free himself, in God, from all that is not
He!14

494
Spiritual Meetings

The advice given to the faqīr to make himself free to invoke

the name of God communally underlines the importance that
Sufism attaches to collective practices. Once initiated, each
member can, and even in principle must, attend meetings of
the ṭarīqah (majālis; sg. majlis), which are held at least once
a week at locations and times specified in advance. These are
held sometimes on Friday following noon prayers, in the
same mosque where the canonical prayer is held; more often
they are held in the evening, between maghrib and ʿishāʾ in
the oratory, mosque, zāwiyah, takiyyah, khānaqāh, or
samāʿkhānah (literally, “auditorium”), which serves as the
seat of the ṭarīqah, or even in the home of the shaykh or that
of one of the fuqarāʾ.

Although there are considerable differences among

brotherhoods in terms of the rules of the meetings, the choice
of the texts that are recited and sung, and the techniques of
concentration practiced, the same format is found everywhere.
It is made up of two parts: the first part is introductory and
prepares those attending to participate in the incantory rite
that forms the final and essential part of the meeting. The
liturgical elements used in the course of the preparatory phase
are mainly songs and cadenced recitations performed in an
order that forms the “stages” (marātib) destined to lead the
participants from an ordinary state of consciousness to a level
of receptivity and fervor favorable to the mystical experience.
As for the principal spiritual exercise, that which has the
virtue of opening the doors of the “states” and “stations” of
the contemplative way for the participants, it can be clothed
in different modalities, which are distinguished by the
respective usage they make of three technical elements:

495
music, corporeal movement, and breathing. Given the
important place they occupied or still do occupy in the
spiritual life of the Muslim community, two major types of
incantory rites will be brought out here. The first, which is the
most
widespread among the ṭuruq such as the Qādiriyyah and
Shādhiliyyah, is based on the rhythmic repetition of the
Divine Name, Allāh; the second is the “spiritual concert”
(samāʿ), the most justly celebrated example of which is found
in the Mawlawiyyah (Mevlevis in Turkey) or “whirling
dervishes,” characterized by the use of music and the
technique of a turning dance.

Before beginning a description of the various components of

the mystical gathering, it is necessary to pause for a moment
upon the thread that connects them and forms the woof of the
gathering as it weaves together all the instants of the life of
each true faqīr. This guiding thread is the remembrance, the
invocation of God.

Invocation (al-dhikr)

Wa ladhikruʾLlāhi akbar, “the dhikr—remembrance,

recollection, mindfulness, naming, or invocation—of Allah is
greater” or “the greatest thing.”15 With these words the Quran
(XXIX, 45) states the primacy of the dhikr both in terms of
relative value in relation to other ritual prescriptions, such as
the canonical prayer mentioned in the preceding verse, and in
terms of absolute value, the invocation being affirmed as the
path of salvation par excellence. Doctrinally speaking, the
dhikr is the becoming aware by the creature of the connection
that unites him for all eternity to the Creator. Seen in this
way, the dhikr constitutes the very essence of religion, as

496
much in its exoteric dimension (where man remembers God
as his Master and transcendent and omnipotent Judge) as in
the esoteric order (where the Divine Presence reveals itself as
the inner dimension of the human being). From an operative
and theurgical point of view, each of the means that the
Revelation has placed at the disposal of believers in order to
help them to attain this awareness is dhikr. There are, on the
one hand, ritual practices that are obligatory for all of the
faithful, those who are connected to the five pillars of Islam
and whose powers of recollection (quwwāt al-dhikr) have
often been commented upon by the mystics.16 Next come the
supererogatory deeds that the most devout Muslims, Sufis or
non-Sufis, are able to carry out ad libitum to get nearer to
their Lord, such as the reading of the Quran, preferably during
the night, the voluntary fasting and almsgiving and the
numerous prayers and rogations (duʿāt) recommended by the
Sunnah. There are, finally, in the Sufi cadre, spiritual
exercises based on the repetition and contemplative
penetration of certain Quranic formulas, especially those that
contain the Names of the Divinity.

Numerous verses of the sacred Book recommend multiple

performances of dhikr, invoking God morning and night, in
fear and humility, until the soul is appeased. The following
are some of these injunctions:

Call upon God, or call upon the Merciful; whichsoever you call upon, to Him
belong the Names Most Beautiful. (XVII, 110)

Remember Me, and I will remember you (or Mention Me, and I will mention
you). (II, 152)

O believers, remember God oft, and give Him glory at the dawn and in the
evening. It is He who blesses you, and His angels, to bring you from the
shadows into the light. . . . (XXXIII, 41–43)

497
In temples God has allowed to be raised up, and His Name to be
commemorated therein; therein glorifying Him, in the mornings and the
evenings, are men whom neither commerce nor trafficking diverts from the
remembrance of God and to perform the prayer, and to pay the alms. (XXIV,
36–37)

God guides to Him . . . those who believe and whose hearts are at rest in
God’s remembrance because surely, in God’s remembrance are hearts at rest.
(XIII, 27–28)

Some sayings of the Prophet as recorded by his disciples have

the same import:

Men never assemble to invoke Allah without being surrounded by angels and
covered by Divine Blessings, without peace (sakīnah) descending on them
and Allah remembering them.

There is a way of polishing everything and removing rust and that which
polishes the heart is the invocation of God.

“Shall I tell you the best of your deeds? The purest in the eyes of your King,
He Whom you hold to be at the highest level, Whose proximity is more
beneficial than the act of giving (in the guise of alms) gold and silver or of
meeting your enemy and striking him down or being struck?” The
companions said, “Tell us.” The Prophet answered, “It is the invocation of
God the Most High.” (Al-Tirmidhī, as told by Abuʾl-Dardāʾ)

Among the numerous formulas employed in invocation,

certain ones have always found favor among the Sufis, such
as “the most beautiful Names” mentioned in the Quran, from
which a list of ninety-nine, corresponding to the number of
beads on the rosary, are recited individually or collectively.

The majority of the Divine Names taken individually can also

be made the object of a dhikr, just as several Names
possessing special affinities in common can be associated in
the formulas of invocation. Some of these groupings are yā
Ḥayy, yā Qayyūm! (O Living, O Immutable!), yā Raḥmān, yā

498
Raḥīm! (O Merciful, O Forgiving), and similarly the
basmalah, the formula for consecration in the Name of God,
which contains the latter two Names. The repetition of the
first part of the profession of faith, Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh, is
universally practiced in mystical circles, in conformity with
the teaching of the Prophet, “the best invocation is ‘There is
no
divinity but God,’” (Al-Tirmidhī, as told by Jābir). Its
particular effectiveness comes from evoking the two phrases
of spiritual realization, negation (nafy) of all divinity, that is,
of all secondary reality that has not sufficient meaning in
itself, and affirmation (ithbāt) of the sole Reality of the
Absolute Being, effacement of the creature and return to the
Creator, annihilation of the separate self (farq) and
reunification with God (jamʿ).

However, the invocation par excellence is that of the Name

Allāh, the unparalleled name of the Divinity, the Supreme
Name (al-ism al-aʿẓam), the Unique Name (al-ism
al-mufrad), the Name of Majesty (ism al-jalālah). With its
symbolic two syllables and four letters, this Name
concentrates all the redemptive efficacy of the Divine
Word.17 “God is present in His Name,” say the Sufis. To the
degree that, through the conjunction of this Presence and a
serious concentration on the part of the invoker, he finds
himself effaced, absorbed in the One invoked, the dhikr
becomes God’s dhikr alone, in which the invocation, the
invoked, and the invoker are one with the One without
second.18

Given its incomparable grandeur, the invocation of the

Supreme Name can only be practiced under certain
conditions, with the authorization of the murshid and under

499
his control. Thus, the authorization to practice invocation
outside of collective gatherings is not generally granted to the
murīd at the time of his entry into the ṭarīqah but at a later
stage, when the shaykh has sufficiently tested the disciple’s
qualifications and has recognized in him the quality of
“traveler” (sālik) on the mystical path and not only that of
being “affiliated with the blessings” (mutabarrak) that
surround the ṭarīqah.

The right to invocation thus constitutes for the faqīr,

according to the saying of Abū ʿAlī al-Daqqāq, master and
father-in-law of QushayrI (d. 465/1072), the “symbol of
initiation” (manshūr al-wilāyah), so that “he who receives the
dhikr is enthroned, while he who loses it is dismissed.”

If such precautions are necessary to avoid the dangers to

which novices could expose themselves by wrongly
performing dhikr, they are not needed at collective sessions,
where the presence of the older and experienced shaykh and
fuqarāʾ provides a guarantee and a security against excesses
and other undesirable psychic manifestations to which the
beginners on the Sufi path could be subjected.20

The Wird (Access)

The spiritual meeting opens with a collective recitation, in a

loud and rhythmic voice, of the wird, sometimes called ḥizb
or waẓīfah, which is the litany proper to the brotherhood.
Made up essentially of a series of
formulas taken from the Quran which individually are
repeated a certain number of times—3, 7, 10, 29, 33, 100, or
1000 times—the wird represents a symbol for the fuqarāʾ of
their connection with the initiatic chain (silsilah) going back

500
to the Prophet, with the master who brought them into the
ṭarīqah being the most recent link. To recite the wird is, in a
sense, to renew the pact made with the shaykh, with the
Prophet, and with God Himself. And it is also, symbolically
at least, to traverse the entire distance of the spiritual path, the
order in which the formulas are arranged having been
conceived to retrace the principal steps to the approach
toward God.

Thus, the wird of the Qādiriyyah, the first to be recorded from

the great Sufi orders, founded in the sixth/twelfth century by
ʿAbd al-Qādīr al-Jīlānī, like that of the Shādhiliyyah (seventh/
thirteenth century), always includes at least one hundred
repetitions of the following formulas: (1) the plea for
forgiveness (istighfār), (2) the prayer upon the Prophet (ṣalāt
ʿalaʾl-nabī), (3) the testimony of faith (Shahādah or
haylalah).21 These formulas correspond to fundamental
spiritual attitudes which each aspirant to the mystical life
must assimilate: (1) the station of fear of God (makhāfah),
which implies repentance (tawbah) and renunciation of
worldly pleasures (zuhd); (2) the station of love (maḥabbah)
which implies patience (ṣabr) and generosity (karam),
qualities that were united in an exemplary fashion in the
person of Muḥammad; and (3) the station of gnosis
(maʿrifah), that is, of discernment (furqān) and of
concentration on the Divine Presence (muḥāḍarah).

The Sufis also establish a concordance among these three

formulas and the three stages of religion (al-dīn) mentioned in
the ḥadīth called “from Gabriel”: the stage of islām, which
engages the external faculties (jawāriḥ) and consists in
carrying out the prescriptions of the religious Law (Sharīʿah)
and in abstaining from that which it forbids; the stage of

501
īmān, which gives access to the internal faculties (bawāṭin),
which asks for progress along the mystical path (ṭarīqah) and
the total giving of oneself; and, finally, the stage of iḥsān,
wherein the Divine Light penetrates and illuminates the
innermost souls of beings (sarāʾir), becoming the place where
total Reality (Ḥaqīqah) is unveiled. The first stage is that of
the common people, the second that of the elite, the third that
of the elect among the elite, the gnostics who have “attained”
God (wāṣilūn).

The Hymns (anāshīd)

The recitation of the wird, which lasts about a half hour, is

sometimes followed by a brief period of spiritual exhortation
(mudhākarah) during which the shaykh reads and comments
upon some passage of a treatise on
Sufism or exposes an aspect of the mystical path and then
answers disciples’ questions concerning the subject discussed.

502
29. “Worldly and Otherworldly Drunkenness,” signed Sultan
Muhammad, ca. 1626–1627.

After this comes the part called the spiritual concert

(al-samāʿ), which includes first the performance of several

503
sacred songs taken from the vast repertoire of Sufi poetry,
odes, and quatrains from Arab, Persian, or Turkish poets, or
poems in the local dialect often composed by anonymous
bards. One very popular category of hymns is made up of
praises (amdāḥ, mawlidāt) which traditionally celebrate the
anniversary of the birth of the Prophet (mawlid al-nabī) the
12th of Rabīʿ I of each lunar year but which, for the past
century, have slowly been introduced into the ordinary
meetings of the ṭuruq.

At their gatherings, the Shādhilī dervishes of Syria, whose

order is representative of a large number of initiatic circles,
sing, among others, hymns drawn from the collection of
poems (Dīwān) of the Sufi ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (from
Naplus, in Palestine) who lived from A.D. 1641 to 1731. Here
are some of the verses that a young munshid with a beautiful
voice sang recently (1964) in a zāwiyah in Hama.
Unfortunately, only the meaning of the words can be given,
translation being unable to convey the harmony and the
rhythm of this psalmody:

O thou who appearest at the rising of the spheres

of the Invisible,

O thou who stoppest in the tent of the men of the heart!

Do not blame me, O censor, for loving the beautiful

ones with supple bodies.

Since I have no other attachment but towards the

One who is present behind the veils.

The perfume of secrets is exhaled in the garden of

504
the meeting,

And its emanation has made us drunk.

This piece is typical of the symbolic images used by the Sufi

poets, be they Arab or Persian. Thus, “he who stops in the
tent of the men of the heart” is the intellect, the First Intellect
(al-ʿaql al-awwal), which the Sufis consider to be the first
created thing and, consequently, like a ray of light that unites
all the worlds. “The beautiful ones with supple bodies” are
the incorruptible beauties of the subtle world, the houris, who
are, for the mystic emanations, rays from the Absolute
Essence. “The perfume of secrets” is the tangible
manifestations of the Divine Presence, each of which
intoxicates because it brings to the heart the light and warmth
of this Presence, itself often associated with wine22 or with
Layla, the Beloved.

As for the evocation of the Prophet, which is also made in the

form of
sung poems, it possesses the same virtue as the ṣalāt (prayer)
contained in the second formula of the wird: Muḥammad,
“the best of created beings,” “the evident prototype” is the
channel through which Divine Benediction descends to earth
and spreads among men; he is the intermediary (al-wāsiṭah)
for anyone wishing to return to the very source of
benedictions, the prayer to him leading to the Lord by a path
of love and beauty.

Thus, in their weekly gatherings of recollection, the fuqarāʾ

of the Shādhilī order from Morocco to Iraq sing in unison
passages from the Burdah (“the Coat”), a poem of the
Egyptian shaykh al-Būṣīrī (d. 694/1296) which came to him
in a vision. Such verses as, “When you see him, to him alone

505
is demanded respect equal to that for an escort, or for an
army”; or again, some extracts from the Hamziyyah (poem
rhyming with hamzah), in which the same author, after
having described the virtues of the Prophet, concludes: “The
image that men can give of thy qualities is none other than
that of the stars reflected in water.”23

The hymns dedicated to the Prophet never fail to create a

climate of intense fervor in which the listeners commune with
the beloved and, through contact with him, are stripped of
their egotistical pretensions and prepared to enter into the rite
that is the heart of the Sufi meeting—the ecstatic dance.

The Sacred Dance

The majority of the ṭuruq possess a mode of collective

invocation that lends itself to corporeal movement. The
Mawlawīs, the whirling dervishes, call it samāʿ, spiritual
concert, because it pertains to a rite in which dance is
sustained by a complete musical ensemble—vocal,
instrumental, and rhythmic. The music itself is considered a
form of invocation.

Many other ṭuruq such as the Qādiriyyah and the

Shādhiliyyah speak rather of ḥaḍrat al-dhikr, meaning
literally “presence of invocation,” because the Name that is
pronounced in the meetings is the Name of God Himself,
Allāh, the Name in which God is present and through which
He makes Himself present. Pronouncing the Divine Name, on
which the rhythm of the ḥaḍrah is based, is thus a sacrament
in the strictest sense of the term—that is, a supernatural act
that allows man to leave his nature and to be transformed,
absorbed in a dimension that surpasses him. In the Maghreb,

506
where there are numerous branches of the Shādhilī order,
such as the ʿĪsawiyyah, the Zarrūqiyyah, the Nāṣiriyyah, the
Darqāwiyyah, etc., this form of sacred dance is also called
ʿimārah, or plenitude, because the name of the Divine
Essence, Allāh (or simply huwa, He), in penetrating the
human receptacle, fills it beyond measure.

There are numerous ways of invoking the name Allāh, The

invocation can be silent, scarcely audible, or it can be spoken
aloud. The Name can be pronounced slowly or quickly and
rhythmically. The most widely used method of invocation,
that of the Shādhilī or Qādirī, is rhythmic, called “the
invocation from the chest” (dhikr al-ṣadr), because, after
having begun by pronouncing the name Allāh in its entirety
with all its letters, the participants finish by pronouncing only
the final hāʾ, in a breath that no longer uses the vibration of
the vocal chords but only alternating contraction and
expansion of the chest.

At the start of this rhythmic invocation, all the participants

stand side by side and join hands, forming one or more either
concentric circles or rows facing one another. In the center
stands the shaykh or one of his assistants. This arrangement,
which is also found among the whirling dervishes, evokes the
symbolism of the circle of angels or the rows of angels that
surround the Divine Throne. The session begins with a slow
rhythm. The dancers pronounce the Divine Name in unison,
bowing the trunk of the body rapidly and fully at the moment
of exhaling the second syllable, lāh. When they inhale, they
stand erect again. The rhythm increases in tempo little by
little, and the movements of the body always accompany the
two phases of the breath. The name Allāh is soon no longer
clear and only the last letter hāʾ remains, which all the chests

507
exhale in an immense burst of air. Each of these exhalations
symbolizes the last breath of man, the moment when the
individual soul is reintegrated into the cosmic breath, that is
to say, into the Divine Spirit, which was blown into man at
the time of creation and through which man always remains
in communication with the Absolute. Keeping with the
movements of the chest, the body is alternately lowered and
raised as if at each instant it were being pulled toward the sky
and then sent back toward the earth. All the eyes are closed;
the faces express a kind of painful rapture. One need not fear
pointing out that, if breathing of this dhikr evokes that of a
rapture of a more sensual order, it is not an accident. There
are precise correspondences between the higher order and that
here below. That is why, for example, earthly love is able to
serve as the point of departure for the realization of Divine
Love, and it is also why the houris of paradise symbolize the
delights of heaven.

The Mawlawī session, the samāʿ, is also entirely woven from

symbolic elements, which all concur on the same goal, the
dhikr, the call to the Divine. The very costume of the dancers
is charged with significance. Their headgear, a large tarboosh
of brown felt, represents the vertical dimension, the axis that
escapes the tribulations of desire and passion; it represents
also the tombstone and reminds the wearer of the unavoidable
door of death, the ephemeral nature of this lower world, and
the necessity for seeking in
this life the Truth which does not die. At the beginning of the
session, the dervish wears a black robe which he removes at
the time of the dance; this means that he is abandoning his
gross individuality in order to appear purified before the
master of the dance and before his brothers. The white robe in
which he then dresses signifies the shroud in which his corpse

508
will one day be wrapped, and at the same time it prefigures
the resurrection and the joyous meeting with the Divine
Beloved. During the session the dervish sings:

The frock is my tomb, the hat my tombstone . . .

Why wouldn’t a corpse dance in this world

when the sound of the trumpets of death

raise him to dance?24

In their orchestra the Mawlawīs use the small violin with

three strings, the lute, the drum, and the reed flute (nay) as
their principal instruments. The reed flute is their favorite
instrument and their most eloquent means of expression. The
reed from which it is made is the symbol of human
existence—fragile, fragmentary, since it is cut off from its
origin just as the reed was pulled from the reedbed. However,
this existence can be regenerated when it is traversed and
transformed by the Divine Breath and is lent Its strength, Its
energy, Its voice.25 Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, in the prologue to the
Mathnawī (Mesnevī), his mystical epic in 26,000 couplets,
likens the song of the flute to the call of the soul that longs to
return to his Lord:

Listen to the song of the reed and listen to its story.

Weeping from the pain of separation

It cries: “Since I was severed from my native land,

Men and women have longed to hear my songs

And the agony of separation has broken my heart. . . .”

509
One of the dominant themes of Mawlawī spirituality is that
earthly music is an echo of celestial music. Harmonious
vibration of strings, the repeated striking of the drum, and the
voice of the flute are reminders of our Divine Origin, and they
awaken in us the desire to find once again our distant
homeland. The Quran teaches that in the beginning God made
a solemn pact, the mīthāq, with souls before creation, asking
them, “Am I not your Lord?” “Yea!” they responded,
accepting perpetual obedience (VII, 172). Nevertheless, souls
were unfaithful to the pact; they desired to live a separate
existence, which is the cause of all their miseries. To find
again the original purity is therefore the most profound, the
most normal aspiration of the human being. As a Mawlawī
friend, a professor of French at the high school of Konya who
had just cited in the text the first verses of the “Lake” by
Lamartine, told me, “Each beautiful thing—a flower, the song
of a
bird—awakens in our soul the memory of our origin. Let us
learn how to listen to the voice of beautiful things; it will
make us understand the voice of our soul.”

The dance itself, in the form that was realized by Rūmī,

which he transmitted to his disciples, draws its efficacy from
a rich and eloquent symbolism at the same time that its action
concentrates and focuses on the human faculties. Gathered
into an octagonal enclosure, the dervishes arrange themselves
to dance in several concentric orbits, creating an image of the
planets in the heavens. One dervish, usually the oldest,
occupies the center of the room, where he represents the
“pole.” He turns slowly in place, while the others, arranged in
a crown shape, spin around and at the same time turn around
in the orbits in which they were placed. The dance is
accompanied by several gestures of the arms. At the

510
beginning, the hands are crossed over the chest in a gesture of
humility and contraction of the soul (qabḍ). Then the arms
spread apart in a sign of expansion (basṭ); the right hand
opens toward the sky and the left hand turns toward the
ground. By this gesture the dervish indicates that he is
opening himself to the grace of heaven in a gesture of
confidence and that he leads the grace thus received toward
the terrestrial world and all the beings who inhabit it. Having
become like a rotating cross, he moves about smoothly, his
head slightly bowed, his shoulders held constantly at the same
level. His white robe, swollen like a corolla, is the image of
the fullness (ʿarḍ) of the universe penetrated by Divine
Wisdom (al-ḥikmah). The vertical axis of his body, elongated
by the high tarboosh, is the sign of the exaltation (ṭūl) to
which the creature can accede only after his extinction in the
All-Powerful (al-qudrah).

Reproducing on earth the movements of the stars, themselves

symbols of angelic powers and hierarchies, the dervish is
conscious of participating in the universal harmony and of
contributing to making the order that is in the skies reign here
below. Giving himself up to the rhythm of celestial
harmonies, he becomes an instrument through which Divine
Love communicates with creatures suffering from separation
and from the cosmic illusion. Through his rotation, he affirms
the unique presence of God in all directions in space,
“Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God” (II, 115), and
he identifies himself with this Center and omnipresent
Principle.

Spiritual Progress

511
Whatever their operative strength, the collective rites alone
could not assure arrival at the final steps of the journey
toward God. Spiritual realization can only be an affair of each
instant, as is well put in the expression
“son of the moment” (ibn al-waqt), by which the Sufi is
defined. For each moment of the life of the faqīr there is a
corresponding adab, a convention, which can be a ritual
practice, a correct behavior, or, better still, an inner attitude in
conformity with that which God expects from His servant. In
fact, according to a teaching of Abuʾl-ʿAbbās al-Mursī (d.
686/1287), who was the master of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh of
Alexandria:

For the servant four moments exist, not one more: the blessing and the test of
which he is the object on the part of God, the obedience and the disobedience
with which he himself tests. And at each of these moments, the servant has a
duty to God: in blessing, this duty is gratitude; in the test, constancy; in
obedience, the awareness of grace; and in disobedience, repentance and
contrition.26

In order to reach such a “presence of spirit” (muḥāḍarah)

which allows, according to a ḥadīth frequently encountered in
treatises on Sufism, “to render to each one and to each thing
his due,” the faqīr must follow, under the direction of his
master, a discipline that includes two inseparable aspects: a
sustained effort toward self-knowledge and daily spiritual
exercises based essentially on invocation.

“Know Thyself”

That self-knowledge is not only the condition but also the

very goal of the mystical quest is affirmed by the ḥadīth of
the Prophet, “He who knows himself knows his Lord” (man
ʿarafa nafsahu faqad ʿarafa rabbah).27 Such a knowledge

512
obviously would not stop at the simply psychological level,
since the human soul, the psyche, always makes up a
fragmentary entity that veils the vision of the total Reality, of
the Divine Self. However, the very existence of this veil
allows, on its own level, for a seizure of the source of
existence, and the concern of the faqīr must be to render the
veil transparent so that the lights of heaven can illumine it and
pass through it unhindered. This means first to recognize our
shortcomings, which are displeasing to God and prevent Him
from shining in us, and to work toward their elimination
through ascetic discipline (al-mujāhadah). This is the
purgative aspect of inner knowledge, the aspect that often
predominates during the initial portion of the path. As for the
positive aspect of this same knowledge, it consists in
recognizing in oneself the reflection of the qualities and
beauties of the Creator and of attributing to Him all glory; this
increases the intimacy between the praiser and the Praised.

The practices recommended by the masters for better

self-knowledge include notably the “setting of conditions”
(mushāraṭah), which takes place
in the morning upon awakening and consists in admonishing
oneself and in reaffirming one’s intention to consecrate
oneself entirely to God. One then tells oneself, “Here is a new
day which will be a test for you, so force yourself, oh my
soul, to fill each instant with that which draws you nearer to
God. . . .”28 The same evening, the faqīr must examine his
conscience (muḥāsabah, literally, an accounting), the object
of which is not only the measurement of how the morning’s
resolutions were followed, but a “gathering up of time”
(ittiḥād al-waqt) by evoking simultaneously a vision of the
acts and the thoughts of the day in imitation of the man on the
threshold of death who sees his entire life pass before him.29

513
The two techniques are, in fact, only particular methods for
maintaining a constant vigilance, which the faqīr must have in
order not to waste time, not to be distracted by “that which
does not concern him” (mā lā yughnīh) and in order to keep
himself constantly attentive to the desire of the Beloved. This
vigilance is called murāqabah, a word derived from the
Divine Name al-Raqīb, the All-Seeing, and it is synonymous
with “the guardian of the heart” (al-ʿassa ʿala ʾl-qalb). It is
this same disposition of the soul that the Hesychasts, the
recluses of the Eastern Orthodox Church, described as “the
way of all the virtues and all the commandments of God,
which consist of tranquillity of the heart and of a mind
perfectly free from all imagination.”30 Its importance has
been stressed by such eminent masters as Muḥāsibī, Qushayrī,
and Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī,31 for reasons identical to
those of the Christian mystics who were adepts in the “prayer
of the heart.” The reason is that only an innermost heart free
from distractions and random thoughts can be illuminated by
perpetual prayer.

The acquisition of murāqabah is the highest level of

self-mastery, the victory on three fronts of the interior battle
waged by the faqīr: that of the external faculties, which
implies scrupulous respect to the legal prescriptions and
abstentions; that of the internal faculties, where the battle
consists of dispelling evil thoughts and of remaining fixed on
the Divine Presence; and that of the depths of the heart, in
which no other concern must enter except that of the Adored.
“Vigilance,” wrote Ibn ʿAjībah, “is the source of all goodness
and contemplation (mushāhadah) is in proportion to it; he
whose vigilance is great will attain great contemplation.”32

“Invoke Often”

514
Whereas the exercises of introspection aim at purifying the
human recipient and at making faqr, the blessed destitution,
reign therein, the dhikr, the pronouncing of the Divine Word,
is made to communicate to the faqīr His inexhaustible
Richness.

In accordance with the Quranic injunction to multiply the acts

of invocation, each ṭarīqah suggests to its members,
according to their level of preparation and their individual
zeal, a large range of ejaculatory prayers (adhkār, pl. of
dhikr). First comes the wird particular to the order, the same
one that is sung in the collective sessions mentioned earlier,
which each faqīr must recite twice a day, morning and night,
using his rosary (sibḥah). The shaykh can, in addition,
propose that the murīd regularly read certain litanies
composed by the inspired masters, often by the founder of the
ṭarīqah . These are, for example, among the Qādiriyyah the
qunūt, made up entirely of Quranic verses; among the
Shādhiliyyah the Ḥizb al-baḥr and the Ḥizb al-barr
(“Incantations of the Sea and the Land”) of Imam Shādhilī, or
the Ṣalāt mashīshiyyah by the “Pole” ʿAbd al-Salām ibn
Mashīsh (d. 625/1228), master of the former; among the
Khalwatiyyah the Wird al-sattār; among the Tijāniyyah the
Jawharat al-kamāl, etc.33

Strictly speaking, however, the invocatory practices are those

that are based on the systematic repetition of short formulas
containing one or more Divine Names and, more particularly,
of the Shahādah, of the sole name Allāh or of its substitute,
the pronoun huwa, “He.” Being acts of pure devotion
performed in order to bring the faqīr face to face with
himself, to test his ability to offer the sacrifice of his thoughts
and his feelings, and to aid him in abandoning himself (tafrīd)

515
in God, these exercises require recollection and solitude.
Moreover, the invocation performed in retreat (khalwah) is
the most often recommended mode of dhikr, the same one
that the Prophet taught to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, his cousin and
son-in-law. When ʿAlī once asked the Prophet the shortest
way to God, the Prophet answered, “ʿAlī, always repeat the
Name of God in solitary places . . . .” After this, with eyes
closed, he said out loud three times, “Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh,”
making ʿAlī repeat this formula with the same intonation.34
ʿAlī later initiated Ḥasan al-Baṣrī to this dhikr, which has
been perpetuated in numerous ṭuruq, such as the
Khalwatiyyah, founded by the Persian anchorite ʿUmar
al-Khalwatī (d. in Caesarea, Syria, in 800/1397). It should be
noted that this ṭarīqah, still active in North Africa and the
Near East, added to the invocation of the Shahādah and the
name Allāh the pronoun huwa and the four Divine Names
Ḥaqq (Truth), Ḥayy (Living), Qayyūm (Eternal), and Qahhār
(Dominant). These seven names correspond to the celestial
spheres, to the colors emanated by the fundamental light, and
to the stages of the soul on the path to perfection. The soul is
first “prone to evil,” then “blameworthy,” “inspired,”
“appeased,” “satisfied,” “satisfying,” before being rendered
“perfect.”35

A very similar teaching is found in the Suhrawardiyyah order,

whose
founder, Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar, already mentioned concerning
his advice on good companions, also figures among the
ancestors of the initiatic chain of the Khalwatīs. The
Suhrawardī dhikr also includes seven names, of which only
the last two—al-Raḥmān (the Merciful) and al-Raḥīm (the
Forgiving)—differ from the preceding list. It is also practiced
during retreats, whose normal duration is forty days, and is

516
accompanied by the visualization of the seven symbolic
colors—blue, yellow, red, white, green, black, and
undifferentiated—which correspond to the various levels or
worlds of universal manifestation.36

Of all the formulas of invocation, it is the name Allāh which,

even among the ṭuruq with a multiform dhikr, has always
been considered the most complete and the most efficacious
way to grace. Thus it is, for example, that when the celebrated
Sufi and theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī, after having
exhausted the possibilities of speculative reasoning, had the
desire to follow the path of direct experience and revealed this
to a Sufi, he was given the following advice:

The best method consists of breaking totally your ties with the world, in such
a way that your heart is occupied with neither family nor . . . money. . . . In
addition you must be alone in a retreat to carry out, from among your acts of
worship, only the prescribed ṣalāt . . . and, being seated, concentrate your
thoughts on God, without other interior preoccupation. You will do this, first
by saying the Name of God with your tongue, repeating without ceasing
Allāh, Allāh, without relaxing your attention. The result will be a state in
which you will effortlessly feel this Name in the spontaneous movement of
your tongue.37

This is found as the first step in a process of inner penetration

in three stages as suggested by the same Ghazzālī in his
celebrated Revival of the Sciences of Religion.

After seating himself in solitude, he (the sūfī) does not cease to say with his
mouth “Allāh, Allāh,” continually and with presence of heart. And he
continues thus until he reaches a state wherein he abandons the movement of
the tongue, and sees the word as if flowing upon the tongue. Then he arrives
at the point of effacing any trace of the word upon his tongue, and he finds
his heart continually applied to the dhikr; he perseveres assiduously, until he
effaces from his heart the image of speaking the letters and the shape of the
word, and the meaning of the word alone remains in his heart, present in him,
as if joined to him and not leaving him.38

517
Integral religion (al-dīn) includes three stations capable of
sanctifying the entire man—body, soul, and spirit—through
submission (islām) to the prescriptions and prohibitions of the
Law (Sharīʿah), through the faith (īmān)
that blooms on the spiritual path (ṭarīqah) and through the
conformity (iḥsān) of the individual to the Divine Reality
(Ḥaqīqah). In the same way, the practice of the dhikr, which
is the central method of this sanctification, takes place on
three levels—that of acts, that of qualities, and that of the
Essence—and in each of these achieves sanctifying union. In
effect, what occurs is the following: (1) The invocation of the
tongue (dhikr al-lisān) unites all the separate moments of the
man in the single act of the dhikr and thus restores primacy to
the only real Agent, Which is God (tawḥīd al-afʿāl). (2) The
invocation of the heart (dhikr al-qalb) causes the appearance
of all the qualities of the universe in a single place, a blessed
center, while attributing them to the only One Who is worthy
to be qualified by the most beautiful Names (tawḥīd al-ṣifāt).
(3) The invocation of the depths of the heart, of the “secret”
(dhikr al-sirr), has neither point of departure nor end, nor
distinct subjects and objects. Because of a clear vision, it
affirms that nothing exists except the One Who is the Name,
the Named, and the Namer, in His Absolute and
Unconditional Essence (tawḥīd al-dhāt).

Mastery of the first stage of the dhikr, which corresponds to

the acquisition of the “science of certainty” (ʿilm al-yaqīn), is
largely attributable to the clarity of the mind, thus to the
aptitude of the faqīr to meditate on himself (according to the
Quran XXX, 8) as well as on “the creation of the heavens and
the earth” (III, 191) and, in general, on all the signs of God
(X, 24). Not only does meditation (tafakkur) aid in
eliminating distractions and in maintaining a fixed attention

518
on the dhikr, but it causes doubt and existential worry to cease
and confirms the murīd in his vocation of seeking God.

The second stage, that of the heart, is also that of “the eye” or
the “source of certainty” (ʿayn al-yaqīn). It implies an
unfailing adherence of the will, a confidence that the dhikr
fills all needs and that it leads to salvation. It is the stage of
love of God, that of the man who resides in the “inward
dimension, . . . the domain of unity, synthesis and
permanence.”39

As for the third stage of the dhikr, that of the “truth of

certainty” (ḥaqq al-yaqīn), it is a gift from heaven,
incommensurate with the effort of the thought and will that
preceded it. The individual abandons himself to it. He is said
to have “disappeared” (ghāʾib), to be absorbed by the One
invoked and “made one” with Him. He becomes, then,
through a direct vision (shuhūd) a perfect witness (shahīd) to
the Truth. According to the testimony of one of those who
arrived at this final stage, the “master of the circle” (shaykh
al-ṭāʾifah) of the Sufis of Baghdad, Abuʾl-Qāsim al-Junayd
(d. 298/910), “It is the supreme reality of tawḥīd professed by
one who attests to the One after having been himself
effaced.”40

Epilogue

Over fifty years ago, in 1931, a great scholar of Muslim

mysticism, Emile Dermenghem, published, along with the
French translation of the famous poem of Ibn al-Fāriḍ on the
mystical wine, a letter which a young Moroccan had written
him.41 This young man described gatherings of dhikr, of
invocation, which he had attended several years earlier in a

519
small mosque in Fez. The dervishes who participated in these
gatherings belonged to the Shādhiliyyah order and the
correspondent concluded his letter with these words: “All
that, alas, is only a memory. . . . Where are the fakirs of
yesteryear? The old ones have passed away or become infirm.
The young ones have become modernized and prefer to spend
their time drinking aperitifs in cafes or strolling through the
new city. The Orient, unfortunately, is losing its essence
along with its charm. The divine Breath which exhaled the
verses of Ibn al-Fāriḍ no longer fills chests. Where will this
lead?”

No doubt these observations are true; this sadness is

legitimate. Inexorably, all people are adopting, with varying
degrees of enthusiasm, a mode of life as well as of
thought—since one does not engage the body without
engaging the soul—diametrically opposed to the course of
religion and, a fortiori, to the mystical path. The Prophet
Muḥammad, or perhaps his son-in-law ʿAlī, once said, “Act
for this present world as if you were going to live forever, and
act for the other world as if you were going to die tomorrow.”
More and more, modern man, whether of the West or the
East, has the tendency to retain only the first part of this
advice; he devotes all his energy to organizing his well-being
here on earth, as if this world would last forever. By doing
this he loses sight of the fact that the passage on earth is, in
reality, only one step. He forgets that according to the
teaching of Jesus, Sayyidnā ʿĪsā, “Man does not live by bread
alone, but by all the words which come from the mouth of
God” (Matthew 4:4); or that, according to the teaching of the
Quran (XCIII, 4), “The other life, certainly, is better for you
than this one.”

520
However, let us not be totally pessimistic. Behind the picture
we are currently given of the Orient divided and prey to the
agony of difficult economic, social, and political organization
remain stable values and an authentic civilization. Men
remain, again according to a Quranic saying, whose “business
dealings do not turn them from the remembrance of God”
(XXIV, 37). If certain spiritual centers have disappeared,
others, even beyond the classical borders of the dār al-islām,
have taken up the refrain which has lasted more than thirteen
centuries. Thus, the Muslim Orient has not failed in its
traditional mission, that which generations of dervishes and
Sufis have fulfilled: to pass from century to century the good
news that there exists a path that leads to God, and to guide
along this path the souls enraptured by a Truth that never dies.

Translated by Katherine O’Brien

Notes

1. It concerns the ḥadīth called “of Gabriel” or “or ʿUmar,” in

the name of the companion who reported it. It figures in the
collection of Muslim, Īmān, I.

2. By “Sufi” (adjective and noun) and “Sufism,” we mean

here that which relates to the interior, mystical, esoteric
dimension of Sunni Islam. Although it has certain close
relationships with Sufism, Shīʿite mysticism, which includes
Ismāʿīlī gnosis and Imāmī gnosis, is distinguished by specific
traits which form a subject of other chapters in this volume.

521
3. F. Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, trans. P.
Townsend (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1984).
No student of Sufism can dispense with consulting the other
works of the same author, namely, Understanding Islam,
trans. D. M. Matheson (London: Allen & Unwin, 1963);
Sufism: Veil and Quintessence, trans. W. Stoddart
(Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 1981); and Dimensions of
Islam, trans. P. Townsend (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970).

4. The English orientalist R. A. Nicholson collected

seventy-eight of them (“A Historical Enquiry Concerning the
Origin and Development of Sufism with a List of Definitions
of the Terms ‘ṣūfī’ and ‘taṣawwuf’ arranged chronologically,”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [1906] 303–8), but ʿAbd
al-Qādir Baghdādī had in the fifth/eleventh century already
collected a thousand, according to L. Massignon, Essai sur les
origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane
(Paris: J. Vrin, 1954) 156.

5. Cited by E. Dermenghem, L’Eloge du Vin (Al-Khamriya):

Poème mystique de ʿOmar Ibn al-Fâridh (Paris: Les Éditions
Véga, 1931) 37.

6. Mīzān al-ʿamal, cited by A. J. Wensinck, La Pensée de

Ghazzālī (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1940) 143–44.

7. See al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Maḥjūb, trans. R. A. Nicholson

(London: Luzac, 1911).

8. See the article “Khirḳa” in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd

ed.) (by J.-L. Michon); see also J. Spencer Trimingham, The
Sufi Orders in Islam (London and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1971) 181–93. The latter work, based on

522
extensive documentation, gives a good survey of the whole of
Sufism, considered in the light of its historical development,
its doctrinal variations, its ritual practices, and the
organization of the brotherhoods.

9. Translated by R. W. J. Austin as Sufis of Andalusia

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1971). The passages reproduced
here are from pp. 69–70.

10. S. H. Nasr, Sufi Essays (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1972)

57–59.

11. Ibid., 58.

12. Al-Suhrawardī, Kitāb ʿawārif al-maʿārif (The Blessings of

Knowledge), chap. 55. Extracts have been translated by E.
Blochet in Etudes sur l’ésotérisme musulman (Louvain: Isras,
1910).

13. J.-L. Michon, L’Autobiographie (Fahrasa) du Soufi

marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (1747–1809) et son miʿrāj
(Leiden: Brill, 1969) 163.

14. Ibid., 160.

15. The immense body of literature treating the dhikr cannot

be summarized here.
One could consult the article “Dhikr” in Encyclopaedia of
Islam (2nd ed.) (by L. Gardet) and, especially, the few pages
that T. Burckhardt dedicates to this topic in An Introduction
to Sufi Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Wellingborough:
Thorsons, 1976) 99ff. See also M. Lings, What is Sufism?
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,

523
1981) chap. 7, “The Method”; and W. Stoddart, Sufism: The
Mystical Doctrines and Methods (Wellingborough: Thorsons,
1976) 64–70).

16. Especially by Abū Ḥamīd al-Ghazzālī, who made of this

one of the major themes of The Revival of the Sciences of
Religion (Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn) (Cairo: al-Maktabat
al-Tijāriyyat al-Kubrā, 1352 A.H.) III. Likewise, in the
contemporary period, the Algerian Sufi Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī (d.
1934) explained all the religious prescriptions of Islam in
terms of their value for dhikr. See al-Minaḥ al quddūsiyyah fī
sharḥ al-murshid al-muʿīn bi ṭarīq al-ṣūfiyyah (Tunis, 1324
A.H.) extracts of which have been translated by M. Lings in A
Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, Shaykh Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1971) chaps. 10 and 11.

17. See especially F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 122–28.

18. This doctrine is developed with great clarity by Ibn ʿAṭāʾ

Allāh of Alexandria, the third great master of the Shādhilī
order (d. 709/1309), in his treatise entitled Kitāb miftāḥ
al-falāḥ wa miṣbāḥ al-arwāḥ (The Key of Felicity and the
Lamp of Souls) (Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1381/1961)
143 pp. The introduction to this treatise was translated into
French by M. Gloton, Traité sur le nom Allāh (Paris: Les
Deux Océans, 1981) 209–20.

19. Cited by Ibn ʿAjībah in Miʿrāj al-tashawwuf ilā ḥaqāʾiq

al-taṣawwuf; French translation in J.-L. Michon’s Le Soufi
marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (1746–1908) et son miʿrāj,
glossaire de la mystique musulmane (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973)
215.

524
20. For a description of the modalities and techniques applied
in the two “traditions” of the solitary dhikr and the collective
dhikr, see L. Gardet, “La mention du Nom divin, dhikr, dans
la mystique musulmane,” Revue Thomiste 52 (1952) 648–62.

21. The repetition of these formulas has its foundations in the

prophetic tradition. Thus, the Prophet said, “There is not a
server or a servant who has said seventy times each day, ‘I
ask forgiveness from God’ without God having pardoned him
of seven hundred sins; the loser is the server or servant who
would commit in one day and one night more than seven
hundred sins” (al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿab al-īmān, according to
Anas).

Anas heard the Prophet say, “whoever prays to me one

hundred prayers, God inscribes between his two eyes
innocence from hypocrisy and safeguards him from hell; on
the Day of Judgment, He places him with the martyrs”
(Ṭabarānī).

“Never has a servant said, ‘There is no divinity but God,

Unique, without equal, to Him the Kingdom, to Him the
praise, and He is All-Powerful above every thing,’ with pure
adherence of spirit, sincerity of heart and pronunciation of
tongue without God opening wide the heavens to look down
upon the one who speaks thus from the earth; or the one
whom God looks down upon seeing his prayers granted”
(Nasāʾī, according to Majmūʿ al-awrād, compiled by ʿUddah
ibn Tūnis [2nd ed.; Damascus: Matbaʾa at-tawfīq, 1350/
1932]).

22. As in the famous Khamriyyah of the Egyptian Sufi ʿUmar

ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1235), a poem for which, in fact,

525
Nābulusī wrote a commentary. See Dermenghem, L’Eloge du
vin.

23. Another example of madḥ nabawī, taken from the

Mawlawī meeting, appears in the section entitled “Praises on
the Prophet” of my chapter on “Sacred Music and Dance” to
appear in volume 20 of this Encyclopedia. The same chapter,
for the most part, completes the descriptions of the sacred
dance given here while analyzing in particular the
controversial question of the licentiousness of samāʿ and of
the seeking out of ecstasy, as well as the various elements of
the spiritual concert—the human voice,
the musical instruments, the melody, and the rhythms.

24. Paraphrased from the Traité sur la séance mawlawie of

Dîvâne Mehmed Tchelebi (16ème s.), cited in M. Molé, Les
Danses sacrées (Paris: Seuil, 1963) 248–49.

25.This can be compared with a letter in which a dervish

likens the nay to the “perfect man,” cited in E. Meyerovitch,
Mystique et poésie en Islam—Rūmī et l’ordre des derviches
tourneurs (Brussels: Desclée de Brouwer, 1972) 89.

26. Cited by Ibn ʿAjībah in Īqāẓ al-himam fī sharḥ al-Ḥikam

(Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1381/1961) 357.

27. See the commentary on this ḥadīth attributed to Ibn

ʿArabī but actually by Awḥad Al-Dīn Balyānī, “Whoso
Knoweth Himself. . . ,” trans. T. H. Weir (London: Beshara,
1976).

526
28. Ibn ʿAjībah, Miʿrāj, al-muḥāsabah waʾl-mushāraṭah
(rubrics 14–15), trans. J.-L. Michon, L’Autobiographie,
190–91.

29. The muḥāsabah found a famous exponent in the person of

the Sufi Ḥārith ibn Asad al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857 in Kufa),
who took his surname from it; see M. Smith, An Early Mystic
of Baghdād (London: Sheldon Press, 1935); Mahmoud
Abdel-Ḥalīm, Al-Mohasibi (Paris: Geuthner, 1940); and J.
Van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn:
Selbstverlag des orientalischen Seminars der Universität
Bonn, 1961).

30. According to Hésychius de Batos, cited in La Philocalie,

trans. J. Gouillard (Paris: Éditions des Cahiers du Sud, 1953)
202.

31. See P. Nwyia, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (m. 709/1309) et la

naissance de la confrérie shādhilite (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq,
1972); Ḥikma nos. 22, 96 and pp. 242–43 note.

32. Ibn ʿAjībah, Miʿrāj, al-murāqabah (rubric 13), trans. J.-L.

Michon, L’Autobiographie, 189–90.

33. Many of these litanies, although composed originally by

Sufis, later fell into the public domain and nourished popular
piety, such as the Dalāʾil al-khayrāt of the Moroccan Imam
ibn Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (d. 870/1465), the Ḥiṣn al-ḥaṣīn of ibn
al-Jazarī (d. 833/1429), and many others, a fairly complete
repertory of which was compiled by C. E. Padwick, Muslim
Devotions (London: S.P.C.K., 1961).

527
34. This tradition is reported by Sidi Yūsuf al-ʿAjamī in his
work Riḥān al-qulūb, cited by O. Depont and X. Coppolani,
Les Confréries religieuses musulmanes (Algiers: A. Jourdan,
1897) 370–72.

35. The Khalwatī teaching is recorded, particularly, in the

Fahrasah (Book of Succor) of Sī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn
Sanūsī (d. 1276/1869), founder of the Sanūsiyyah ṭarīqah,
whose politico-religious authority rapidly spread to
Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and the Sudan. See L. Rinn,
Marabouts et Khouans (Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1884) 295–99,
and the table of the seven degrees leading to perfection, pp.
300–301.

36. See Kitāb ʿawārif al-maʿārif (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub

al-Ḥadīthah, 1358/1939), especially chaps. 26–28, which treat
the merits and the modalities of this retreat called
“arbaʿīniyyah” (the “quarantine”).

37. Mīzān al-ʿamal, cited by A. J. Wensinck, La Pensée de

Ghazzālī, 144.

38. Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, chap. III, 16–17, cited by G. C.

Anawati and L. Gardet, La Mystique musulmane (Paris: J.
Vrin, 1961) 277.

39. F. Schuon, Dimensions of Islam, chap. 9, “Earthly

Concomitances of the Love of God.” “The man who ‘loves
God’ . . . is one who dwells in . . . the ‘inward dimension’ . . .
the domain of unity, synthesis and permanence.”

40. Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and

Writings of Al-Junayd, Gibb Memorial Series 22 (London:

528
Luzac, 1962) 57 (Arabic text), 178 (English translation):
“This, then, is the highest stage of the True realization of the
Unity of God in which the worshipper who maintains this
unity loses his individuality (dhahab huwa).”

41. Dermenghem, L’Eloge du vin.

529
530
 15

Sufi Science of the Soul

MOHAMMAD AJMAL

Science of the Soul and Metaphysics

WHEN WE TALK ABOUT PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY,

we generally mean a mode of nonmedical treatment of
mentally disturbed people that employs psychological
methods. The mode of treatment may not be based upon a
comprehensive theory of personality and may isolate a
segment of human experience, concentrate upon it, and thus
produce a “cure.” “Cure” itself is a word that has a plenitude
of meanings, with the result that no sensible or rational
discussion of it can take place about it—unless one defines it
as the removal of a symptom or the disappearance of a
syndrome. Syndrome is another expression that psychiatrists
use frequently but with their own personalized meaning.

Another aspect of modern psychotherapies is that they are not

related to any metaphysical principles. Any reference to
metaphysics, psychotherapists think, would vitiate the
scientific character of their theories and would certainly
create disorder in their practice—if it is not already in a state
of confusion. By metaphysics, I do not mean the modern
metaphysics which creates an endless chain of arguments and
only sets up more puzzles rather than solving genuine
problems. By metaphysics, I mean what René Guénon asserts,

531
“In all true metaphysical conceptions it is necessary to take
into account the inexpressible.”1

The Sufi science of the soul and the cure of its maladies, or
psychotherapy, are, however, a mode of psychological
treatment based on a metaphysics that embodies the principles
of the Islamic tradition in the sense that tradition is used by
such writers as Guénon and F. Schuon.2 The Islamic tradition
points out that the origin of every soul is paradise. This
archetypal reality is a “primordial idea” that is veiled in every
soul. It can, however, manifest itself through spiritual practice
based upon sustained
invocation (dhikr), or repeated remembrance of the Supreme
Name of God. In this way, the forgotten “trust” center of the
personality becomes activated—a center that is both
immanent and transcendent.3

Traditional View of Personality

Traditional metaphysics has a clear theory of personality.

Human personality, according to the Islamic tradition, has
three aspects: spirit (rūḥ), heart (qalb), and soul (nafs). A
distinction must be made among the following: (1) al-nafs
al-ḥayawāniyyah—the animal soul, the soul as passively
obedient to natural impulsions; (2) al-nafs al-ammārah—“the
soul which commands,” the passionate, egoistic soul; (3)
al-nafs al-lawwāmah—“the soul which blames,” the soul
aware of its own imperfections; and (4) al-nafs al-muṭmaʾ
innah—“the soul at peace,” the soul reintegrated in the Spirit
and at rest in certainty. The last three of these expressions are
from the Quran.

532
This view of the personality has been elaborated by various
Sufi authorities. For example, M. Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi, in his
Bawādil al-nawādir, has given a very clear account of human
thought process and its stages.4 Thought passes through five
stages before it becomes a decision. The first stage (hājis) is
the stage of a passing thought. The second stage (khāṭir) is the
stage at which the thought persists for some time. The third
stage is ḥadīth al-nafs, the inner dialogue that the ego has
with its “soul” (nafs). The fourth stage (hamm) is reached
when there is a readiness for decision, and the fifth stage
(ʿazm) is the level of decision making itself. From the point of
view of mental disease, the third stage is the most crucial one.
It is the stage of inner verbalization or possibly
subvocalization, and if one continues to talk to oneself mental
disturbance is created. These inner stages have been described
by a great Darqāwī Sufi, Shaykh Ḥabīb of Tetuan, as
“thought-impulses.” He says, “Beware of the deception of
thought-impulses; they weaken good counsel and they are
lies.”5

According to a tradition of the Prophet, “Allah has forgiven

for my ummah those thoughts about which they talk to
themselves, provided they do not express them.”6 M. Thanvi
has commented on this saying and provided an analysis of
man’s thought process. He thinks that if one enters into a state
of murāqabah, or meditation on thought, he will find that
thought is circular. It can, in fact, be regarded as a vicious
circle. This vicious circle of thoughts can be broken only by
entering into a higher circle. Therefore, he says, “Take a
sincere brother as your intimate. He will discriminate between
the thought-impulses and dispel the source of doubt in you.”

533
All subvocal verbalization implies a philosophical proposition
and is an indication of a particular attitude to life. Such a
verbalization may appear
to be sheer nonsense, but if you analyze it, it turns out to be a
serious expression of a latent attitude. It is really a statement
of a philosophical proposition that expresses fear and anxiety.

From another perspective, the picture of human personality

according to the Sufi point of view is this:

The spirit (al-rūḥ) and the soul (al-nafs) engage in the battle for the
possession of their common son, the heart (al-qalb). This is a symbolical way
of expressing the nature of the spirit, which is masculine and the nature of
soul, which is feminine. By (al-rūḥ) we mean the intellectual principle which
transcends the individual nature and al-nafs is the self-centered compulsive
tendencies which are responsible for the diffuse and changeable nature of the
“I”. Al-qalb is the point of intersection of the “vertical” ray, which is al-rūḥ,
with the horizontal plane, which is al-nafs.7

The two contraries al-rūḥ and al-nafs try to capture the qalb.
If the nafs wins the battle, the heart is “veiled” by her. The
nafs is also interested in the nimble transitions of the
conditions of the world. She passively clings to form which
dissipates. There is a tradition of the Prophet according to
which, “it should be known that there is a lump of flesh in the
body of a man on which depends his being good or bad.
When this piece of flesh is healthy, man remains (spiritually)
healthy. When it is not healthy, man goes astray—and that
lump of flesh is man’s heart.”8 Heart in this context should
not be confused with either the physical heart, the human
emotions, or the mind. It would be relevant here to quote F.
Schuon, who has given an excellent account of the functions
of the heart which are related to the intellect and intellectual
intuition. He says: “Intellectual genius must not be confused

534
with the mental acuteness of logicians. Intellectual intuition
comprises essentially a contemplativity which in no way
enters into the rational capacity, the latter being logical rather
than contemplative. It is contemplative power, receptivity in
respect of the light which distinguishes transcendent
intelligence from reason.”9 To understand the continuous
temptation brought about by the nafs, it is necessary to delve
further into the meaning of the heart and its nature.

The heart is the abode of Divine Light. Divine Knowledge

can be attained through its activity. In the mortal human body,
it is the only organ that is the locus of the energies one
receives from the spiritual realm. It opens up ways for
spiritual development. God has called it His own abode. The
Prophet has said that heart is the house of God.

All hearts are only potentially the houses of God. Most hearts
can never lift the veil of mundane passions and desire which
cover the heart. Some Sufis describe it as being covered by
the “rust” of earthly passions, which settles on the heart. This
rust can be removed only by ardent and persistent
invocation (dhikr). The nafs creates unbreakable
bonds—passive habits and ambitions—while the Spirit unites,
because it is above form. With a rapierlike thrust it separates
reality from appearance. If the Spirit wins the battle, the heart
will be transformed into spirit and at the same time transmute
its soul, suffusing her with spiritual light. Then the heart
reveals itself; it becomes the tabernacle (mishkāt) of the
Divine Mystery (sirr) in man.10

The heart can be quickened only by invocation and

contemplation, by the attainment of virtues, and by realizing
their relationship to metaphysics. Emotional conflicts,

535
anxieties, worries, and almost all forms of neurosis can be
outgrown by a change in cognitive reorientation and a shift in
perspective. Whenever there is an anxiety, a free-floating
state of fear expecting a disaster at every turn of the corner,
and a sense of doom on waking up to a new dawn, there is a
need for a deliberate and willful redirection of attention to the
Absolute, to God. Very soon the invocation will capture the
heart, and the invocation will become spontaneous. Energy
will begin to flow to the spirit, and once the spirit is
awakened and sharpened the temptations to worry will die
out.

There is another function of the heart. There is, of course, the

physical heart with its physiological functions, but the heart
the Sufis talk about is the seat of Divine Knowledge and
Love. In fact, the intellectual intuition that Schuon speaks
about is equivalent to love as understood by the Sufis, the
love that, according to Rūmī in the prelude to his Mathnawī,
is “the physician of all our maladies.” This love is primarily
the love of God. “The Eye of the Heart” begins to see the
Eternal Essence. Only subsequently is it love for human
beings and for existence in general. It is also love for nature,
virgin nature in both its aspects—the aspect of beauty (jamāl)
and the aspect of rigor (jalāl). This love does not exclude the
“wisdom of fear,” which is an aspect of love for the awesome
grandeur of the eternal Substance.

Sufi Practices and the Cure of the Soul

Strictly speaking, there can be no cure for the maladies of the

soul unless the sick man enters into bayʿat with a master
(receives spiritual initiation from him). Some Sufis say: “One
who has no master, Satan is his master.” Relationship with the

536
master gives the novice a new sense of being, which
gradually develops into a new consciousness and finally
reaches beatitude. This relationship draws the novice from the
turmoil of the world into the refuge provided by the master’s
spiritual presence and protection. This result demands,
however, that two conditions be fulfilled: (1) confession and
(2) compliance with the master’s guidance. Confession
consists in the
statement of what the novice (murīd) experiences, his fears,
his anxieties, and his problems. The master responds to the
confession by guidance and provides directions with which
the novice has to comply if he wants to emerge from his
agony and suffering.

Prayer by itself cannot eliminate the imperfections and

compulsive tendencies of the novice. Prayer awakens the
“heart” but needs spiritual will (himmah), effort (mujāhadah),
and meditation (murāqabah) on one’s tendencies to heal
one’s sick soul. Meditation can be of two kinds: (1) takhliyah,
that is, self-analysis with a view to obviating one’s moral
weaknesses; (2) taḥliyah, that is, self-analysis with a view to
strengthening one’s virtues so that vices become weak and
ultimately die out. Schuon has spoken of the six stations of
wisdom, which are forms of meditation aiming at the spiritual
development of the novice and complementing invocation.11
M. Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi takes up each imperfection of the
novice separately and guides him toward its cure. He expects
the novice to meditate on both his imperfection and the
suggested cure. These and other methods employed by the
Sufis have proved effective in bringing relief from suffering
and inducing in the novices a sense of the sacred. But, as
already mentioned, all these methods require a master, and
the Sufi master has to be chosen with care and caution. Not

537
everyone who claims to be a master is really so. Jalāl al-Dīn
Rūmī has, in fact, called some of these self-proclaimed
masters “devils.” The seeker has to realize that all genuine
Sufi masters derive their authority from the Prophet
Muḥammad. The Quran refers to the Last Messenger in these
words: “Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good
example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day,
and remembereth Allah much” (XXXIII, 21).

On the Laylat al-miʿrāj (Night of Ascension) Muḥammad

ascended all the scales of being. His body was reabsorbed
into the soul, soul into spirit, and spirit into Divine Presence.
This reabsorption traces the stages of the Sufi path.12 The
Prophet is the fount from which all orders of Sufism flow.
The Sufi master is thus a representative of the Prophet, and
allegiance (bayʿat) to him is indirectly bayʿat with the
Prophet and finally with God. One who becomes a pilgrim on
this path has to give his whole self to it. Piecemeal devotion is
poor devotion. “Knowledge only saves us on condition that it
enlists all that we are, only when it is a way which works and
transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds
the soil—metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of
the sacred things to require of man all that he is.”13

Within the context of the master–novice relationship, the

novice turns a new leaf and begins a new life in order to have
the ailments of his soul
cured. He begins with repentance. The sura al-Qiyāmah
(LXXV) begins with the following words:

Nay, I swear by the Day of Resurrection.

Nay, I swear by the accusing soul.

538
The accusing or reproachful soul (al-nafs al-lawwāmah) is the
soul that blames and is aware of its imperfections. It is the
conscience, the inner voice, which persuades man to repent
for his sins. Some Sufis have given a detailed account of the
diverse aspects of this force.

Repentance

Sufis of the Chishtiyyah order have described three kinds of

repentance (tawbah): (1) Repentance of the present—which
means that man should be penitent about his sins. (2)
Repentance of the past—which reminds man of the need to
give other people’s rights to them. If one has reprimanded
someone unduly, he should ask for forgiveness from the
victim of his hostility. If one has committed adultery, he
should seek forgiveness from God. (3) Repentance of the
future—which means that one should decide not to commit
any sin again. Sufis, however, do not ask their followers to
dwell on their sins because dwelling on one’s sins gives them
a secret pleasure. It fulfills the neurotic need for
self-persecution or masochism. The more one wallows in
repentance on sins, the more one tends to repeat them. It is
one instance of the general principle of enantiodromia
enunciated by Heraclitus. The principle simply states that if
you try to reach the extreme of anything, you will achieve the
opposite. Quite a few people get involved in the vicious circle
of creating self-defeating situations. It is, therefore, desirable
that after a solemn resolve one may try to direct one’s
attention to the image of the shaykh and begin the invocation
of the Supreme Name.

The main point of repentance is that it does not mean

wallowing in penitence or self-pity or self-devaluation. As

539
Rūmī points out, wallowing in penitence is itself a form of
self-indulgence. The best time to start the process of spiritual
transformation is the present—here and now. One who dwells
on the past is driven to the past through regression. He who
has the himmah (spiritual will) to transcend himself can alone
be himself. It is quite probable that the novice may lapse into
an old habit, but he can always return to the domain of the
Spirit. As Abū Saʿīd Abiʾl-Khayr says: “If you have broken
your vow of penitence a hundred times, return to the spiritual
fold.”

Time and again Sufis have emphasized that there is no need

to despair even when one has broken one’s vows of
repentance a thousand times. One can begin again afresh, but
sincerity and wholeheartedness are the principal
conditions. “Believe that sins of a hundred worlds can be
removed from the (Right) Path by one sigh of repentance.”
“Again if you come to the Right Path with sincerity for a
moment, you will attain a hundred stations (of spiritually)
every moment.”14

Sufis have always regarded repentance as a positive turning

away from sin and directing one’s vision toward God. The
relative significance of repentance varies from one religion to
another. Sufis, by and large, attach a great deal of importance
to repentance, but they strongly discourage “wallowing in
repentance” or enjoying repentance. When one is penitent, the
Sufi way is to redirect one’s will to invocation, persistent and
ardent invocation.

Disease

540
The Quran refers to “disease” in various contexts. In the sura
al-Baqarah (The Cow) there is a verse about the “sickness in
the heart”:

And of mankind are some who say: We believe in Allah and the Last Day,
when they believe not. They think to beguile Allah and those who believe,
and they beguile none save themselves; but they perceive not. In their hearts
is a disease, and Allah increases their disease. (II, 8–10)

Khwājah ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī in his voluminous commentary on

the Quran has defined “disease” in various ways. In
discussing the above verse, he defines it as follows:

It is a sickness which has no limit, and it is a pain which has no remedy. It is

a night which has no dawn. What could be a more miserable state than the
state of the hypocrite? That is a state of alienation from the beginning to the
end. Today he is in an inward agony and tomorrow he will be in external
despair.15

In another place, Khwājah Anṣārī explains disease as “doubt”

and dissociation (nifāq), a condition from which modern man
is suffering so grievously.

The first symptom of this “sickness” is alienation—from self,

from society, from one’s own history, and from one’s cultural
roots. Modern man is seeking a balm for his psychological
wounds, but in all respects his solutions to problems
themselves become problems. This is true of all fields today,
be they economic, administrative, or psychological. Modern
psychologists have called this phenomenon self-healing.
Psychoanalysis has been facetiously defined as a disease of
which it is supposed to be the cure.16

The second symptom is “desacralization.” Desacralization is

not necessarily a deliberate and willful phenomenon. It can be

541
subliminal in the sense that a person, on account of the
barrage of glamorous and exciting stimuli that impinge on his
senses, has no opportunity to expose himself to sacred
objects and associate himself with people who possess a
sacred presence. He, therefore, cannot perceive and
experience the sacred. This desacralization has led to the
spiritual impoverishment of the youth. A large number of
young men and women throughout the world are seriously
interested in the “return of the sacred.”

The third symptom, which is derived from the first two, is

what Guénon has called “dispersion into multiplicity.” The
attractive objects around him lure modern man in diverse and
contrary directions, and each direction exercises such a
fascination for him that he feels imprisoned in them. He
would like to lead a single-directed and wholehearted life but
fails to find a center.

A related symptom is the crisis of identity. Mass migration

has accentuated this crisis. Immigrants in a new country,
however affluent, feel empty within. Their inner conflicts
generated by the process of adjustment to the new
environment create in them a sense of meaninglessness of
life. The “void” they feel within because of the nostalgia for
the past and the environmental pressures goading them to
move forward with the times are so acute that they affect their
belief system, their morality, and their attitude toward life.

Cure

Sufis believe that these symptoms can be removed by a

sustained effort (mujāhadah) to subordinate one’s
“thought-impulses” to the moral will and thus bring oneself

542
closer to God. The Supreme Being is reflected in the Supreme
Name, and invocation of the Supreme Name alone can bring
relief to suffering. “Orison (dhikr) is a space into which no
evil enters,” says Schuon.17

There are some other methods of helping the novice to

overcome his or her diseases of the soul and emotional
diffculties. They are, roughly speaking, the following:

(1) Therapy through Opposites. Some Sufis have advocated

this mode especially for the cure of emotional disturbances
caused by jealously and envy. A novice suffering from
jealousy may be advised to talk affectionately and lovingly to
the person toward whom he is jealous and say good things
about him in public. In case he is not present in the vicinity,
the novice should write to him an affectionate letter.
Deliberate opposition to a negative conscious attitude has to
be cultivated. The assumption is that the desire to love and to
understand others is latent in all human beings; it has only to
be brought into consciousness.

(2) Therapy through Similars. This form of therapy consists

in pointing out to the novice that his experiences are not
unique, especially when they are accompanied by a negative
effect. A novice suffering from depression or anxiety may be
given examples of other people suffering from similar
maladies. This form of therapy induces in the novice a feeling
of sharing and helps to alleviate the yoke of his isolation.

543
The first essential element of the Sufi science of the soul or
psychotherapy is confession or admission of one’s problems.
Verbalization of one’s thoughts and feelings, disturbing
questions and problems need to be communicated to the
master (murshid). As Ḥāfiẓ Shīrāzī has said, “He told the
friend our spiritual condition. It is not possible to conceal
one’s pain from our real friends.” After communication has
been made to the master, it is imperative for the novice to
comply with his instructions. These instructions or
interventions are not authoritative commands, but they are
based upon acceptance by the disciple. The master also
accepts the condition of the novice. This mode of therapy is
the most effective method for eliminating vices like pride,
arrogance, and egotism. The worst form of pride is subliminal
pride (kibr-i ʿaẓīm). A man who is very proud is likely to
assume an air of humility and self-abnegation. If he declares
in false humility, “I am an ignorant man,” the best therapy for
him is to confirm his statement by saying, “Yes, you are an
ignorant man.” If he is genuinely humble, he will not be
disturbed by this response. If his humility is only a pretense,
however, he is likely to become furious. The motive for such
a humble statement is to evoke a denial by others. Once this
expectation is frustrated, the proud person is likely to be
shaken out of his fake attitude. This mode is very much like
Viktor Frankl’s “paradoxical intention.” But it is not a
twentieth century invention. It was known to the Sufi masters
who were fully aware that long morbid cogitations in turn
breed more conflicts. These conflicts are relevant only to the
passional level of existence. Once one abandons that level and
rises up to the higher level, the inner chatter and the
corresponding conflicts are gradually diminished both in
frequency and in intensity.

544
Some Sufis have advocated a dialogue with God every night
before going to sleep. The novice has to confess all to God,
verbalizing his main weaknesses. The confession has to be
accompanied by a true statement that the novice will not
persist in his sins. The point is that the novice should not
make any false promises to God. If the novice feels helpless
in the clutches of a bad habit, he should not make a promise
to God that he will abandon the habit. By persisting in his
dialogue, he will become more aware of the
Divine Presence in his heart, and he is likely to muster inner
strength to outgrow the disturbing habit. It has been observed
by some Sufis, especially M. Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi, that quite a
few novices have experienced an inner conversion by
persisting in the dialogue with God and have thus abandoned
unwholesome tendencies. But he also advises the novice to
accept his states. It is only by acceptance that one can change.

The concept of acceptance as employed by Sufis is based

upon the distinction between voluntary and involuntary
thoughts. Strong and distracting thoughts impede
concentration. Ḥadīth al-nafs (or “inner chatter”) generally
obstructs free flow of invocation or meditation. But this
obstruction is generally involuntary. The best way to outgrow
it is to accept it, that is, neither to attempt to force it out of
one’s consciousness nor to pay heed to it. In other words, it is
only by consciously ignoring it, that one can outgrow it.
Shaykh al-ʿArabī al-Darqāwī says:

The sickness afflicting your heart, faqīr, comes from the passions which pass
through you; if you were to abandon them and concern yourself with what
God orders for you, your heart would not suffer as it suffers now. . . . Each
time your soul attacks you, if you were to be quick to do what God orders and
abandon your will entirely to Him, you will be saved from psychic and
satanic suggestions and from all your trials. But if you begin to reflect in

545
these moments when your soul attacks you, to weigh the factors for or
against, and sink into inner chatter, then psychic and satanic suggestions will
flow back towards you in waves until you are overwhelmed and drowned,
and no good will be left in you, but only evil.18

The last and by far the most humanistic method is to imagine

what the other man is feeling by saying to oneself, “Suppose I
am this man, why should I be ranting and raging against
something unimportant?” By this imaginative reversal one
can empathically imagine the other man’s emotional
problems. As a result, one is likely to feel less concerned
about how his behavior affects us. This is the essence of
empathy, of putting oneself in another man’s position. In
personal relations, malice or hostility develops on account of
misunderstanding. Such a reversal helps to remove the
misunderstanding and thus eliminates the feeling of hostility.
It may be mentioned that the gestalt psychologists employ
this method for making a client aware of his repressed
feelings.

Another aspect of Sufi treatment of the soul or psychotherapy

is that it discourages statements of generalizations by the
disciples. Generalizations are instances of thinking in
connotation which keep the disciple in a state of vagueness
and sometimes ambiguity. A Sufi master always requires
denotation of specific instances and symptoms. If a novice
writes to him,
“I am depressed,” the Sufi master wants to know the specific
reason for depression and the context in which it occurs. It is
only then that he gives guidance. Sufis also emphasize the
value of prayer—prayers which are uttered in an attitude of
humility, surrender, and helplessness before God. They also
insist that special prayers should not be expressed in

546
generalities but should be addressed to God in the form of
specific requests.

Sufis realized that thinking in connotation is itself a sickness.

It encourages ambiguous cogitations and is a rich source of
exaggerations, overstatements, and understatements. It makes
disciples confused and leads to other sicknesses like self-pity
and seeking care and attention from others.

In modern times, Alfred Korzybski (in his Science and

Sanity) and Samuel Hayakawa and others have built up a
system of psychotherapy based upon the principle of reducing
all connotations to denotations. The basis of their therapy,
however, is materialistic and profane. It reduces all mental
and spiritual processes to brain functions.

The question-and-answer method, which has been hallowed

by its association with Socrates, is venerated by philosophers.
This method has dominated European thought for centuries,
but it is only in the present times that its limitations and the
nature of its fascination have been determined.
Psychoanalysts have explained children’s questions as
revealing their repressed impulses, and any literal
understanding of these questions is regarded as self-defeating.
Today psychologists, especially gestalt psychologists like
Frederick Perls, regard the question-and-answer method as a
torture game. They think that quite a few questions are
disguised commands and that several others are ways of
escaping an unpleasant situation.

During the spiritual guidance of his followers (murīdīn), M.

Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi always scrutinized the questions his
novices asked him. If the question was rooted in the novice’s

547
experience, only then would he reply. If the question was
general and not relevant to the novice’s stage of spiritual
development, M. Thanvi would dismiss the question as
emanating from a “confused mind” or a mind that finds it
irksome to meditate over the real problems. He admonished
them to refrain from asking such questions. He thus teaches
them the virtue of relevance. He thinks “irrelevance” is an
expression of frustrated spirituality. When the great Muslim
scholar Syed Suleiman Nadvi requested M. Thanvi to admit
him into his fold, M. Thanvi acceded to the request on
condition that M. Nadvi would never ask him an academic
question. In the case of scholars and “intellectuals,” M.
Thanvi demanded a sacrifice of their superior functions,
because he knew that they would not grow spiritually if their
minds remained cluttered with “empty words.”

Dream Interpretation

One of the methods that Sufi masters employ in helping

novices to emerge from their suffering is interpreting their
dreams. Such interpretations are never reductive but always
teleological. In these interpretations, dream fragments are
generally symbolically treated. For example, one disciple of
M. Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi described a dream to him in a letter. In
the letter he said: “I was very depressed. Last night I had a
dream that a woman clad in a white dress appeared in the
form of my mother. She kept on repeating an Urdu verse very
vigorously which means that Allah is not obliged to please
everybody. If you want such a God, try to find another God.
When I heard this verse, I was very upset and I woke up
crying.” M. Thanvi replied that this is divine guidance.
Sarmad (an Indian Sufi poet) has made a similar point in his
quatrain: “Sarmad, one should make one’s plaint brief. One

548
should resort to one of the two alternatives. Either you
surrender yourself to the Will of the Friend, or abandon the
Friend.” “Sometimes guidance comes through sternness, and
at other times through love. This guidance was through love.
That is why the form of the mother appeared.”19

This was a symbolic interpretation of the dream and anagogic

in character. There is no reductionism, no profanation in the
interpretation. Such interpretations are to be found throughout
Sufi literature, and some of the most illuminating examples of
symbolic interpretation are those described in the Kitāb
al-ibrīz concerning an unlettered Sufi saint of the
Shādhiliyyah order, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāghī.

The Goal of the Sufi Science of the Soul

“Sufi psychology does not separate the soul either from the
metaphysical or from the cosmic order.”20 Metaphysics
provides the basis and qualitative criteria for psychology and
cannot form a part of empirical psychology. Empirical
psychology studies aspects of phenomena, psychic and
behavioral, and seeks their immediate causes. This hunt for
“causes” and “explanations” has produced a plethora of
hypotheses and theories that are a source of confusion and
bewilderment for the modern student. Sufi psychology, on the
contrary, presents an adequate account of symbols and does
not reduce them to the thought-impulses of a repressed mind
and gives a living meaning to them by creating an attitude of
reverence toward them.

The final aim of the Sufi science of the soul or psychotherapy

is to create in the novice a sense of detachment from and

549
noninvolvement in the world. The Sufi has to renounce his
attachment to the world but not to abandon
living fully. In fact, he has to reach that station wherein he
finds himself in the presence of God. He begins to perceive
reality in a new light, the light of God. In the process of the
gradual unfolding of his spirit, he begins to be moved by
symbols and integrates them into his life. Without an
appreciation of symbols, no one can attain mental health.
Without developing a capacity of discernment between truth
and illusion, the sacred and the profane, beauty and ugliness,
no one can claim to be normal. The spirit becomes open to the
Infinite once the impediments of the psyche are removed.

The spiritual life is equivalent to symbolic life, regulated by

the perception of different aspects of the Spirit. Different
forms express different facets of reality. Man is the central
expression of the Spirit on the earth. One aspect is revealed in
the form of a tree of which the trunk symbolizes the axis of
the Spirit passing through the whole hierarchy of the world
while its branches and leaves correspond to the differentiation
of the Spirit in the many states of existence. Similarly, some
birds like the peacock and the dove reveal other aspects of the
reality of the Spirit, and some Sufis have said that the most
luminous of all symbols are “the shining stars, and the
brilliant precious stones.”

The norm of the human state is the saint, and only his soul
can be said to be completely healthy, as it has become wed to
the Spirit. Sufism sees the ordinary soul as being in a state of
sickness resulting from separation from God and in turn
causing the forgetfulness of God. There has, as a result,
developed a vast Sufi science of the soul, whose aim is to
reinstate man in his original perfection and to rid him of the

550
often-neglected diseases that weigh upon his soul. Ultimately,
only a science such as the Sufi science of the soul can succeed
in curing the soul’s diseases and in being an effective
psychotherapy. Only the Spirit can cure the soul of its ills.
Only the soul that is united with the Spirit possesses health;
for it alone is the soul of man as God created him in his
primordial perfection.

Notes

1. See J. Needleman, The Sword of Gnosis (Baltimore, MD:

Penguin Books, 1974) 44.

2. “Tradition” is “truths or principles of a divine origin,

revealed or unveiled to mankind . . . through various figures
envisaged as messengers, prophets, avataras, the Logos or
other transmitting agencies, along with all the ramifications
and applications of these principles in different realms,
including law and social structure, art, symbolism, the
sciences, and embracing of course Supreme Knowledge along
with the means of its attainment” (S. H. Nasr, Knowledge and
the Sacred [New York: Crossroad, 1981] 68).

3. The Quran states, “Lo! We offered the trust (amānah) unto

the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from
bearing it and were afraid of it and man assumed it. Lo! He
hath proven a tyrant and a fool” (XXXIII, 72).

4. Born 1280/1863, M. Ashraf ʿAlī Thanvi was easily the

greatest Sufi saint and scholar of the Indo-Pakistan
subcontinent in the twentieth century. His great influence
over a large number of people earned him the title Ḥakīm
al-ummah, the Wise Man of the Ummah. He wrote about six

551
hundred books, which include a detailed commentary on the
Quran, a commentary on the Mathnawī of Rūmī, a classical
exposition of the basic concepts of Sufism, and books on
various aspects of Islam. One of his books, Islam and Modern
Sciences, has been translated into English by the late M.
Hasan Askari. Thanvi died in 1943 in Thana Bhawan in India,
which was also his birth place.

5. See his Diwan (London: Diwan Press, 1982) 31.

6. Quoted in Thanvi’s, al-Ṣiḥḥat ḥukm al-waswasah

(Deoband, 1365 A.H.).

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 255.

9. F. Schuon, Gnosis: Divine Wisdom, trans. G. E. H. Palmer

(London: John Murray, 1959) 49.

10. See T. Burckhardt, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine,

trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1983) 27.

11. See Schuon, Stations of Wisdom, trans. G. E. H. Palmer

(London: John Murray, 1961).

12. See M. Lings, What is Sufism? (Berkeley and Los

Angeles: University of California Press, 1975) 35.

13. F. Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts,

trans. D. M. Matheson (London: Faber & Faber, 1953) 138.

552
14. ʿAbd al-Majīd Daryābādī, Taṣawwuf-i īslām (Azamgarh,
1947) 177.

15. See Anṣārī, Kashf al-asrār, ed. ʿA. A. Ḥikmat (Tehran:

Dānishgāh, 1952–60) 1: 75.

16. J. Haley, Changing Families (New York: Grune &

Stratton, 1970) 70.

17. Personal communication 1979.

18. See Letters of a Sufi Master, trans. T. Burckhardt

(Bedfont, Middlesex: Perennial Books, 1969) 9.

19. Thanvi, Tarbiyat al-sālik (Thana Bhawan: University

Press, 1964).

20. Burckhardt, Introduction to Sufi Doctrine, 37.

553
554
 Part Four

KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY

555
556
 16

God

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

The Divine Nature

THE QURANIC VERSE “HE IS THE FIRST and the Last,

the Outward and the Inward” (LVII, 3) refers not only to the
Divine Nature but also to God’s role and function in Islamic
spirituality, for God is the alpha and omega of Islamic
spirituality and both its inner and outer reality. He is at the
center of the arena of Islamic life, and all facets and
dimensions of spirituality revolve around Him, seek Him, and
are concerned with Him as the goal of human existence. The
raison d’être of the Quranic Revelation and the religion of
Islam is the unveiling of the doctrine of the Divine Nature in
its fullness, of the knowledge of God as He is in Himself, not
as He has manifested Himself in a particular message or form.
At the heart of the Quranic message lies the full and plenary
doctrine of God as both transcendent and immanent, as both
majesty and beauty, as both the One and the Source of the
manifold, as both Origin of Mercy and Judge of all human
actions, as the Originator and Sustainer of the cosmos and the
goal to which all beings journey, as the suprapersonal Essence
beyond all creation, and as the personal Deity Whose Will
rules over all things, Whose love for knowledge of Himself is
the cause of creation, and Whose Mercy is the very substance
of which the threads of His creation are woven. The Quranic

557
doctrine of God reveals Him as being at once Absolute,
Infinite, and Perfect, as the Source of all reality and all
positive qualities manifested in the cosmic order. Islamic
spirituality is nothing other than knowing, loving, and
obeying God through the means revealed in the Quran and
promulgated and exemplified by the Prophet on the basis of
the full doctrine of the Divine Nature contained in the Quran
and Ḥadīth. This doctrine is made explicit and unfolded in the
sapiential commentaries upon these sources and also in other
traditional works of wisdom written over the ages by Muslim
gnostics, philosophers, and theologians.

Each school of Islamic thought has revealed some aspect of

the Divine Nature: the jurists the concrete embodiment of His
Will in the Sharīʿah; the Muʿtazilite theologians His
transcendence; the Ashʿarites the power of His Will as it
orders all things; and the philosophers the necessity of His
Being, which also necessitates the manifestation of existence.
It remained for the people of the inner path, the Sufis and
gnostics, to reveal the doctrine of the Divine Nature in its
fullness, for only through access to the inner center of man’s
being, which the Sufis, following the Quran, identify with the
heart, can man gain the full knowledge of the Divine Nature.
Furthermore, it is this “knowledge of the heart” concerning
God that is the goal of all spiritual striving in Islam, whose
spirituality is essentially of a gnostic nature.1

The Names and Qualities

God is referred to by many names (asmāʾ) in the Quran, for

according to this sacred text, “To Him belong the beautiful
Names” (LIX, 24), but the Supreme Name (al-ism al-aʿẓam)
by which He is known is Allāh. This is the Name of God’s

558
Essence (al-Dhāt) as well as of all the Divine Names (asmāʾ)
and Qualities (ṣifāt) as related to and “contained” in the
Divine Nature. All that can be said of the Divine Nature as
being both transcendent and immanent, Creator and beyond
creation, personal and supra-personal, Being and
Beyond-Being pertains to Allah, Who is the Divine as such
and not one of the aspects of the Divinity to which other
Quranic Names of God refer.

Divine Oneness

Allah is first and before everything else One, and it is the

Oneness of God that lies at the center of both the Quranic
doctrine of God and Islamic spirituality. The first Islamic
testimony (Shahādah), which contains all metaphysics and
which also possesses the power to operate the transformation
of the human soul in the direction of its primordial perfection
is Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh (there is no divinity but God, but Allah).
This supreme synthesis of Islamic doctrine is, first of all, a
statement about the Divine Nature as being One, beyond all
duality and otherness and, second, as being the Source of all
reality, beauty, and goodness, of all that is positive in the
universe. The testimony means also that “there is no reality
but the Divine Reality,” “there is no beauty but the Divine
Beauty,” etc. Finally, the testimony is the means of
integration of the human being in the light of the Oneness
which belongs to God alone. All Islamic spirituality may be
said
to issue from the awareness of the Oneness of God and the
realization in one’s life of unity, which is the fruit of
al-tawḥīd2—that is, at once oneness and integration. To be a
Muslim is to accept this Divine Oneness not only as a
theological assertion but also as metaphysical truth and a

559
living spiritual Reality which can operate a transformation in
the human soul in the direction of perfection. All the levels of
Islamic spirituality are related to degrees of realization of this
tawḥīd. As the eighth/fourteenth-century Sufi poet Shaykh
Maḥmūd Shabistarī sang centuries ago,

See one, say one, know one;

With this are sealed the trunk and branches

of the tree of faith.

Islamic mystical treatises as well as theological ones based on

the text of the Quran and Ḥadīth are essentially one long
commentary on the Divine Oneness and its meaning, ranging
from the famous sermon of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib on al-tawḥīd,3
to the short Treatise on Unity of Awḥad al-Dīn al-Balyānī
concerned with the purely gnostic understanding of tawḥīd, to
the elaborate treatises of al-Ghazzālī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
on the Divine Names.4 The knowledge of this Oneness is the
highest science, and its realization the supreme goal of human
life. According to the traditional teachings of Islam, in fact,
the greatest sin that man can commit is the denial of this
Divine Oneness or of accepting a partner (sharīk) for
God—hence the odium which surrounds every form of
“polytheism” (shirk), which implies exoterically the formal
acceptance of another divinity besides God and esoterically
the acceptance of any force or power, whether it be within the
soul of man or in the outside world, as being independent of
God. At the heart of all Islamic spirituality stands the doctrine
of God’s Oneness and its implications for and ramifications
within the human soul.

560
The Quran is like one long melody whose refrain is the
Divine Oneness, for God is at once One in Himself (al-aḥad)
and One with respect to His creation (al-wāḥid).5 According
to the verse “Verily I am God. There is no god but I: therefore
serve Me, and perform the prayer of My remembrance” (XX,
14), the very necessity of worship issues from the Divine
Oneness. Likewise, the mercy associated so closely in the
Muslim mind with the Divine Being issues from His Oneness,
for again according to the Divine Word, “To me it has been
revealed that your God is One God; so go straight with Him,
and ask for His forgiveness” (XLI, 6). Moreover, He is Lord
of the worlds (Rabb al-ʿālamīn) as a consequence of His
being One, for “surely your God is One, Lord of the heavens
and the earth, and of what between them is, Lord of the Easts”
(XXXVII, 4).

The Quranic doctrine of Divine Unity is summarized in the

Quranic chapter bearing this title (and also the title al-Ikhlāṣ)
(CXII):

In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Say: “He, God is One (aḥad);

God, the Self-sufficient Besought of all (ṣamad);

He begetteth not, nor is He begotten,

And none is like unto Him.”

In this short sura, often recited in the daily prayers and

forming a cornerstone of Muslim piety, God’s Oneness is
stated in the most majestic terms in combination with His
being the source of all that is, the everlasting and eternal
Reality which in its fullness contains the source of all that

561
exists and which is also the refuge against the withering effect
of temporality, which causes all save the “Face of God” to
perish.

The Divine Oneness implies not only transcendence but also

immanence. The Quran asserts over and over again the
transcendence of God above and beyond all categories of
human thought and imagination, for He is “beyond all that
they describe [of Him]” (VI, 100) and “All things perish save
His Face” (XXVIII, 88). The first Shahādah itself is the most
powerful way of pointing to God’s transcendence, and the
well-known Islamic motto Allāhu akbar, usually translated
“God is great,” means in reality that God is greater than
whatever is asserted and affirmed about Him. Islamic
spirituality is based on the constant awareness of this
transcendence, of the impotence of all things before His
Power and the perishable nature of all existence in contrast to
His ever-living and eternal Nature.

Yet God is also immanent in the light of His transcendence,

for not only is He beyond all things and all levels of human
and cosmic existence, but, as He Himself asserts in the Quran,
“We are nearer to him [to man] than the jugular vein” (L, 16).
Moreover, “God stands between a man and his heart” (VIII,
24). Spirituality implies not only the awareness of
transcendence but also the experience of immanence in the
very light of this transcendence. It is not only to experience
God as beyond all things but also to see His “signs” in all
things, to see God everywhere. That is why the Prophet taught
that the highest form of tawḥīd is to see God before, in, and
after all things. No full understanding of Islamic spirituality is
possible without taking into consideration the Quranic
doctrine of Divine Immanence in the light of Divine

562
Transcendence and its effect upon the spiritual life, for the
same sacred text that asserts, “There is nothing like unto
Him” (XLII, 11) also states, “Whithersoever ye turn, there is
the Face of God” (II, 115). Quite naturally, however, the
exoteric dimension of Islam emphasizes more the dimension
of transcendence, and the esoteric immanence. But this
must be understood in the light of the fundamental truth that
the esoteric already assumes the acceptance and the practice
of the exoteric. Therefore, although most Sufis have
emphasized the Divine Immanence and Proximity, some of
the most sublime pages concerning Divine Transcendence
also have come from their pens. At the same time, the
reverential attitude toward the transcendent One Who is
victorious over all that is and before Whom all that is is
reduced to nothingness (Huwaʾl-Wāḥid al-Qahhār) is basic to
all authentic Sufi spirituality and a necessity for the
realization of Union.

The Divine Reality

If vis-à-vis His creation God is both transcendent and

immanent, in Himself He is at once Absolute, Infinite, and
Perfect, these “hypostases of Unity”6 providing a
metaphysical knowledge of the Divine Nature and pointing to
the different aspects of the Divine Reality, which remains
One while possessing these hypostases. In the language of the
Quran, the absoluteness of God refers to His majesty (jalāl),
His infinitude to beauty (jamāl), and His perfection to kamāl,
which in Arabic means both perfection and totality. God is
the Absolute which reduces all otherness (mā siwaʾLlāh) to
nothingness and which manifests Itself as all that is majestic,
the supreme quality of majesty belonging to God alone. God
is also the Infinite, containing the “possibility” of all things in

563
Himself; for “unto God belong the treasures (khazāʾin) of the
heavens and of the earth” (LXIII, 7–8). The root of all things
(the malakūt of the Quran) is contained in the Divine Nature
by virtue of this infinitude, which is also the cause of that
irradiation and creativity that is the origin of the universe. The
world exists not only because God is absolute but also
because He is infinite—“rich” (al-ghanī), in Quranic
language, that is, containing all possibilities within Himself.
The Divine Infinitude is at once the Divine Possibilities,
which the Sufis were later to identify as the source of the
immutable archetypes (al-aʿyān al-thābitah) of all things, and
the Divine Compassion (al-Raḥmah) by virtue of which both
the cosmos and revelation were manifested.

God is also the Perfect, possessing every possible perfection

in Himself. He is the Source of all positive qualities
manifested in the universe and all that is of beauty and
goodness. All that radiates the love and grace (barakah) that
run through the arteries and veins of the universe originate in
the Divine Perfection. As the Absolute, God is the Source of
all being; He bestows miraculously the gift of existence upon
nonexistence and brings about the distinction between the real
and the unreal. As the Infinite, He is the Source of the
archetypal reality of all things and the expansive and
creative “compassion” which is the metaphysical cause of
creation. As the Perfect, God is the Source and Origin of all
perfection and all quality in creation. Man realizes God by
realizing the Source of all quality, by breathing in the
vivifying rays of the Divine Compassion, and by remaining
aware of the wonder of existence and reality, of the incredible
chasm that separates the existent from the nonexistent. The
metaphysical doctrine of the Divine Nature thereby permeates
the whole of Islamic spirituality, even if it is understood in its

564
fullness only by the few gnostics in whom theoretical
comprehension and spiritual realization are combined in
perfect union.

Precisely because God is at once absolute and infinite, the

Divine Nature, although usually referred to in the masculine,
also possesses a feminine “aspect,” which is, in fact, the
principle of all femininity. If God in His absoluteness and
majesty is the Origin of the masculine principle, in His
Infinitude and beauty God is the Origin of femininity.
Moreover, if as Creator and Judge God is seen in Islam as He,
the Sufis point out that as Mercy and Forgiveness God can be
envisaged and symbolized as the Beloved or the female who
is the object of the spiritual quest. The Divine Compassion,
al-Raḥmah, is grammatically feminine in Arabic, as is the
Divine Essence (al-Dhāt) Itself, so that femininity symbolizes
the aspect of inwardness, beauty, and mercy of the Divine.
The Islamic conception of God, while emphasizing His
Majesty, is certainly not oblivious to His Beauty, and this
truth is reflected not only in female spirituality in Islam but in
the female dimension of all Islamic spirituality—not to speak
of the interioriz-ing role of the female even in the external
context of traditional Islamic society.

God and Creation

If in Himself God is the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Source

of all perfection, He is the Source of all positive quality that is
to be found in the created order. Not only is He the Creator
(al-Khāliq) and Lord (al-Rabb) of the universe, but He is also
the Living (al-Ḥayy) and the Giver of Life (al-Muḥyī),
without whom there would be no life in the world. He
possesses speech, and it is He who speaks or produces the

565
word (al-Kalimah) and without whom there would be no
human speech. Likewise, He is the Knower of all things
(al-ʿAlīm) without whom there would be no knowledge and
no intelligence of any kind. The first Shahādah, Lā ilāha
illaʾLlāh, in fact not only asserts the Unity of God in the most
universal and metaphysical manner possible but also returns
all positive cosmic qualities back to their Divine Origin. It
also means that “there is no life but the Divine
Life,” “there is no goodness but the Divine Goodness,” etc.
Through His Names and Qualities God manifests the
universe, and the goal of Islamic spirituality is to rediscover
through these manifestations their unique Source and to
recognize God’s sovereignty over all that is contained in the
bosom of time and space.

The opening chapter of the Quran, the Sūrat al-fāṭihah, which

according to the Prophet is the synopsis of the whole Sacred
Text and which is repeated throughout the days and years of a
Muslim’s life on earth as the heart of the daily prayers,
recapitulates this doctrine of God’s sovereignty and man’s
relation to Him.

In the Name of God, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate.

Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds,

The Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful,

Master of the day of judgement,

Thee we worship, and in thee we seek help.

Guide us upon the straight path,

The path of those on whom thy grace is,

566
not those on whom thine anger is,

nor those who are astray.

The Divine Mercy

As indicated in the formula of consecration (BismiʾLlāh

al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm), God is at once Mercy and
Compassion, and it is by virtue of this Mercy that the whole
universe is brought into being and all religions are revealed.
God is Lord of the worlds, the Master of all that is contained
in “space”—the space not only of this visible world which
surrounds us but also of all the worlds above. He is also
Master of the Day of Judgment, which comes at the end of the
historical cycle. Hence, He is Master of time and all that takes
place within its fold. Between this lordship of space and of
time there is repeated His Qualities of Goodness and Mercy,
which thereby “fill” these containers of the created order and
which manifest His Names and Qualities everywhere. It is
this Divinity Whom man, in his normal state as created “in
God’s own image” (ʿalā ṣūratihi), worships, and Who
provides shelter for man in the storm of terrestrial existence.
Before this supreme Divinity man can have but three
attitudes: to remain on the path of His Grace, which is none
other than the straight path (al-ṣirāt al-mustaqīm), the path
that may be said to be the very definition of the way of Islam
as such; to go astray in the forgetfulness of God in a life of
passionate dispersion; and, finally, to oppose God actively
and to incur His wrath. Islamic spirituality may be said to be
nothing other than marching
upon the straight path that leads every man by virtue of being
born in the human state to that Divinity Who is the Sovereign
and Master of the universe and Whose Mercy and Goodness

567
are the very root of existence and the means whereby the
Divine Qualities and Names are reflected upon the mirror of
cosmic existence. This latter in turn is nonexistence parading
in the guise of existence, for ultimately all existence and
reality belong to God alone.

The Divine Essence and the Names

The Quranic doctrine of the Divinity is based on the

distinction between God in His Essence and His Names and
Qualities which are at once the same as the Essence and
distinct from It and also from each other. This doctrine, which
has been elaborated by theologians, philosophers, and Sufis in
numerous works, is also the cornerstone of Islamic spirituality
inasmuch as the invocation (dhikr) of the Names of God not
only permeates all Islamic life but also, in its technical and
esoteric sense, constitutes the very heart of all Islamic
spiritual practice.7 The Divine Essence (al-Dhāt) is beyond
all description and definition. It is the Ipseity which is usually
referred to by the final letter of the Supreme Name
Allah—hence, huwa, “He”—which some Sufis have also
interpreted in feminine rather than masculine terms. But God
also possesses Names (asmāʾ) that represent determinations
and aspects of the Divine Nature, such Names as the
Supremely Merciful (al-Raḥmān) and the Forgiver
(al-Ghafūr) but also the Giver of Death (al-Mumīt) and the
Just (al-ʿĀdil). God’s Names, on the basis of the Quran and
Ḥadīth, are usually considered to number ninety-nine.8 The
Prophet instructed Muslims to meditate on the ninety-nine
Names rather than on the Divine Essence. The Names are
usually divided into Names of Majesty (al-jalāl) and Names
of Beauty (al-jamāl). Both the qualities of rigor and mercy
come from God, and He is at once the stern King who judges

568
human actions and punishes evil while recompensing the
good and the merciful Being who forgives those who seek His
forgiveness, the Being whose compassion knows no bound.
The life of the Muslim moves like a winding road toward a
mountain top, vacillating from one side to another between
rigor and mercy, fear of God’s retribution and trust in His
forgiveness.

In some mysterious fashion God’s Name as revealed in the

Quran and made known to the Prophet is inseparable from
Him and leads to Him. God hears the voice of him who calls
upon His hallowed Name and remembers him who
remembers God, for, according to the Quran, “Remember Me
and I shall remember you” (II, 235). But this remembrance
is also the invocation of His Name, for the Arabic word dhikr
means at once invocation, remembrance, and calling upon
God. In revealing His sacred Names, God has not only
provided the doctrine whereby He can be known
metaphysically and theologically but has also provided the
means whereby He can be known experientially and realized
inwardly. The whole life of the Muslim is punctuated by
constant remembrance of His Name as contained in such
formulas as inshāʾ Allāh (if God wills) or al-ḥamdu liʾLlāh
(praise be to God), which are repeated throughout everyday
life. As for Islamic spirituality at its highest level, it is nothing
other than being transmuted by the invocation of the Divine
Name until one lives in constant remembrance of God, until
man ceases to be separative consciousness and becomes
nothing other than the reverberation and echo of His Name
whose power transforms the creature in such a way that
finally the invoker (dhākir) becomes the invocation (dhikr)
and the invocation the invoked (madhkūr). There abides only
the “Face of thy Lord, the possessor of Majesty and

569
Splendor” (LV, 27). The Names of God both reveal His
Nature to man and lead man back to God, Who alone is the
Source of all reality.

The Experience of God

During the earthly journey of man, God is experienced first of

all as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Man begins
his journey to God in this world, which displays, in its
existence, forms, harmony, and laws, the Creator Who
bestowed existence upon it. As the Quran says, “God is the
Creator of everything, and He is the One, the Omnipotent”
(XIII, 16). Therefore, “To God bow all who are in the
heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly” (XIII, 15).
The Muslim sees total obedience to God as the natural
consequence of God’s being the Creator of the world as well
as the Being Who rules over the universe and Whose Will
governs all things, for “to God belongs all that is in the
heavens and the earth. Whether you publish what is in your
hearts or hide it, God shall make reckoning with you for it. He
will forgive whom He will, and chastise whom He will; God
is powerful over everything” (II, 284). Islamic spirituality is
involved with this awareness of God’s rule over the world,
the necessity of submission to His Will—hence, islām—and
the judgment God makes upon all human action, which He
knows and in which He is present. “Surely God is powerful
over everything. Whatsoever mercy God opens to men, none
can withhold and whatsoever He withholds, none can loose
after Him. He is the All-mighty, the All-wise” (XXXV, 2).

God’s omnipotence is, of course, combined with His

omniscience, for He is the Knower of all that is and all that
takes place in this world. For, “with

570
Him are the keys of the Unseen; He knows what is in land
and sea; not a leaf falls, but He knows it. Not a grain in the
earth’s shadows, not a thing, fresh or withered, but it is in a
Book Manifest” (VI, 59). This Book Manifest (al-kitāb
al-mubīn) is none other than Divine Knowledge, which is the
root and origin of the reality of all that exists, for God’s Will
reigns supreme in a universe in which His Power dominates
over all things and all human actions and where His
Knowledge encompasses all orders of reality from the angelic
substances to the pebbles on a beach.

Yet in such a world man is mysteriously endowed with the

gift of freedom of action, which holds him responsible before
God for whatever action he commits. Without this freedom,
the role of God as Judge, His Justice and even His Mercy
would lose their ultimate significance, for how could God
judge human action if man were not responsible for that
action? The Quranic description of the Divinity, therefore,
emphasizes the omnipotence and omniscience of God and His
Justice, in the light of which man is judged, while also
reminding man over and over again of his responsibility
before his Lord, Who is the final Judge of all his actions.

The aspect of God as the Just and Judge of human affairs is

complemented by the description of Him as the Merciful and
the Forgiving. It is true that man must surrender himself to
God’s Will and thereby gain protection, for God alone is the
ultimate protector (al-Wakīl). It is true also that man must try
to follow the concrete embodiment of the Divine Will as
contained in the Sacred Law (al-Sharīʿah) and the ethical
principles enunciated in the Quran and Ḥadīth and that he will
be judged accordingly by God on the Day of Judgment.
Nevertheless, it is true that God forgives, that His Mercy

571
knows no bounds, and that often He acts in imponderable
ways. In fact, according to a well-known ḥadīth, upon the
Divine Throne (al-ʿarsh) is written, “Verily My Mercy
precedes My Wrath” (inna raḥmatī sabaqat ghaḍabī).
Moreover, in the Quran it is the Names of Divine Mercy, such
as al-Raḥmān, al-Raḥīm, and al-Ghafūr, that are repeated
more than others—not to speak of the fact that every chapter
of the Quran but one begins with the name of Allāh followed
by Raḥmān and Raḥīm and not the Names of Majesty or
Justice. The Quran itself, in fact, identifies the name
al-Raḥmān, which signifies the supreme form of Mercy, with
the Divine Essence Itself, with the very Nature of God, for it
asserts, “Call upon God, or call upon the Most Merciful
(al-Raḥmān)” (XVII, 110).

God also penetrates His creation through His “signs” (āyāt),

which are manifested both in the world of nature and within
the soul of man, for the Quran asserts, “We shall display to
them our signs (āyāt) upon the horizons (āfāq) and within
themselves (anfus) until it becomes manifest to them that
it is the truth (al-ḥaqq)” (XLI, 53). God is at once Truth and
Reality; the word Ḥaqīqah, which is related to the Divine
Name al-Ḥaqq, means both truth and reality. This Ḥaqīqah
manifests itself everywhere in the macrocosmic as well as the
microcosmic world. Moreover, the verses of the Quran are
also called āyāt, so that it can be said that the Muslim
breathes in a universe in which the vestigia Dei (literally, āyāt
Allāh) are manifested everywhere. God has left His
“signature” upon all things in a language whose key is
provided by Revelation.

God as Love and Light

572
As far as Islamic spirituality is concerned, the aspect of God
as Love and also as Light are particularly significant and have
led to distinct modes of spirituality. As far as love is
concerned, it is asserted in the Quran that, there are “a people
He loves and who love Him” (V, 54). The well-known sacred
ḥadīth “I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known. Hence
I created the world so that I would be known” places the very
cause of creation in God’s “wanting” or “loving” (ḥubb) to be
known. In both cases the word ḥubb or love is used to relate
God to man as well as God to His own creation. Moreover,
one of God’s Names is al-Wadūd, He Who loves, and Sufis
usually refer to the Divine as the object of love. It is true that
the technical term used for love by later Sufis is ʿishq, a
non-Quranic term implying intense love, but the emphasis on
the love that God has for man and the creation and that man
should have for God is to be found in the very sources of the
Islamic Revelation. It must never be forgotten that one of the
Prophet’s names is Ḥabīb Allāh, literally, friend or beloved of
God, and that Muslim saints over the centuries have seen in
the love of God for the Prophet and in his love for God the
prototype of all love between man and his Creator. God loved
the Prophet so much that He addressed him in these words:
“If thou wert not, I would not have created the heavens.” No
understanding of Islamic spirituality is possible without
comprehension of the element of love for God which marks
all authentic expressions of this spirituality, although in the
case of Islam this love (al-maḥabbah) is always combined
with sapience or gnosis (al-maʿrifah).

As for the Name of God as Light (al-Nūr), it is directly

connected to those spiritual paths which emphasize the way
of knowledge, for, according to the Prophet, “al-ʿilmu nūrun,”
knowledge is light. The Quran states that “God is the Light

573
(nūr) of the heavens and the earth” (XXIV, 35). Therefore, all
light issues from His Light, from the physical light of the
candle to the light of the sun and even beyond to the angelic
and archangelic lights which illuminate the soul. The reality
of God as Light has left its impact upon
Islamic spirituality not only through the distinct School of
Illumination (ishrāq), founded by the sixth/twelfth-century
Sufi and philosopher Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, but also in a
more general illuminationist strand that is to be found far and
wide in many different forms and schools of Sufism and
Islamic philosophy.

The Face of God

The Quran speaks in several places of the Face of God (wajh

Allāh). The Face of God is that aspect of the Divinity which
He has turned toward the world or, on another level, a
particular world determined by a distinct religion or
revelation. His Face refers to His Names and Qualities not in
themselves but inasmuch as they are reflected upon the
myriads of mirrors of existence. This Face is also none other
than the face which the spiritual man turns toward God. Man
returns to God by turning his face toward God’s Face and by
finally realizing that he is himself the mirror in which God
contemplates His Holy Face. Moreover, all the worlds and the
countless creatures in them perish save this Face, for, as the
Quran asserts, “All things perish, except His Face” (XXVIII,
88) and “All that dwells upon the earth is perishing, yet still
abides the Face of thy Lord, majestic, splendid” (LV, 26–27).
The goal of human life is to realize this Face while man
resides in the human state as the being whom God created in
“His image” (ʿalā ṣūratihi).

574
On the highest level, the realization of this Face through
“self-effacement”—or annihilation (fanāʾ), as the Sufis have
called it—means to be already resurrected in God while in
this life and to see God “wherever one turns.” Those who
have died to their ego have gained thereby the right to assert
with such saints as Ḥallāj and Basṭāmī their “union” with the
Divine and to express through their ecstatic utterances such
sayings as “I am the Truth” or “Glory be unto me.” In such
cases, it was not the individual Sufi but God in them who
uttered such ecstatic sayings. Through this self-effacement or
annihilation, which represents the highest possibility of the
human state, the spiritual masters of Islam came to realize the
ultimate meaning of the Shahādah, which is not only that God
is One but also that He is the only Reality in the absolute
sense. Whether called the “transcendent unity of being”
(waḥdat al-wujūd) or “unity of consciousness” (waḥdat
al-shuhūd) and despite varying metaphysical expositions and
interpretations given to these terms over the centuries by
mystics and gnostics, this doctrine represents the highest fruit
of spiritual realization, which is to know God and to see Him
as He is. The fruit of the spiritual path of Islam is the plenary
knowledge of the Divine. He who has gained such a
knowledge through the
means made available in the Islamic tradition and by virtue of
the grace issuing from His Names experiences God as at once
transcendent and immanent, as before all things and after all
things, as both the Inward and the Outward. He sees God
everywhere, and wherever he turns he sees His Face; for did
not the Quran assert “Whithersoever ye turn, there is Face of
God”? Such a person is already dead to the world even if he
continues to live actively in it. His gaze is fixed upon God,
and his tongue and heart never cease repeating His Name.
Before the profane world, which understands him not, he

575
simply repeats the Quranic injunction “Say Allah, then leave
them to plunge themselves in vain and trifle discourse” (VI,
92). He already lives in Allah’s Sacred Name, having died to
his passionate self. Through this death he has gained access to
the world of the spirit and has come to know His Lord,
thereby fulfilling the goal of creation and the purpose of the
Quranic Revelation, which is none other than to enable man
to know and love God and to obey His Will during this
earthly journey.

Notes

1. Even within Islamic esoterism there is a “quintessential

Sufism” wherein the full and complete doctrine of the Divine
Nature is to be found, formulated usually in a symbolic
language, but also sometimes in an explicitly metaphysical
language. See F. Schuon, Sufism: Veil and Quintessence,
trans. W. Stoddart (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 1981).

2. This word implies at once the state of oneness and the

action of making into one or integration. It is, therefore, not
possible to translate it into a single term in English.

3. A Shiʿite Anthology, ed. and trans. W. Chittick (London:

Muhammadi Trust, 1981) 27–29.

4. See Balyānī, Épître sur l’Unicité Absolve, trans. M.

Chodkiewicz (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1982); al-Ghazzālī,
Maqsad al-asnā fī sharḥ maʿānī asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, partly
trans. J. McCarthy in his Freedom and Fulfillment (Boston:
Twayne, 1980) 333–61; and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Traité sur
les noms divins, trans. M. Gloton (Paris: Les Deux Océans,
1983).

576
5. Tawḥīd, technically speaking, embraces at once aḥad and
wāḥid as well as the act of integration in the light of the
Divine Oneness.

6. This terminology belongs to F. Schuon; see Sufism: Veil

and Quintessence, chap. 7.

7. Such treatises as the Miftāḥ al-falāḥ of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh

al-Iskandarī and Allāh, al-qawl al-mutamad of Shaykh
al-ʿAlawī contain explicit teachings about Sufi doctrine of
dhikr, and many other Sufi texts allude to this central practice
indirectly. See Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, Traité sur le nom Allah (Paris:
Les Deux Océans).

8. Actually God’s Names are infinite, but they are

summarized and recapitulated in the set of ninety-nine Names
in the specifically Islamic form of revelation. There are, in
fact, several sets of ninety-nine Names all based on the Quran
and Ḥadīth, and all Muslim rosaries possess ninety-nine
beads corresponding to this traditionally determined number
of Divine Names.

577
578
 17

The Angels

SACHIKO MURATA

ANGELS ARE UNSEEN BEINGS of a luminous and

spiritual substance that act as intermediaries between God and
the visible world. Belief in their existence enters into the
definition of faith itself: “The Messenger believes in what
was sent down to him from his Lord, and the believers: Each
one believes in God, His angels, His Books, and His
Messengers” (II, 285; cf. II, 177, IV, 136). The word for
angel, malak (pl. malāʾikah), whose root meaning is
“messenger,” occurs more than eighty times in the Quran and
repeatedly in the Ḥadīth. The Islamic concepts of creation,
revelation, prophecy, the events that occur in the world,
worship, the spiritual life, death, resurrection, and the central
position of man in the cosmos cannot be understood without
reference to the angels. In philosophical and Sufi texts,
angelology is often an essential component of both
cosmology and spiritual psychology, since the angels enter
into the definition of both the macrocosm and the microcosm.

Angels in the Quran and Ḥadīth

The angels belong to the “world of the unseen” (ʿālam

al-ghayb). When the unbelievers asked why an angel had not
been sent down with the Prophet Muḥammad, God replied,
“Had We made him an angel, yet assuredly We would have

579
made him a man” (VI, 9). Even if the angels were to be seen
by the outward eye, they would appear in forms suitable for
the visible world (al-shahādah). Moreover, if God had sent
down an angel, then “the matter would be judged, and no
respite would be given [to mankind]” (VI, 8). For, “upon the
day when they see the angels—no good tidings that day for
the sinners. . . . On the day when the heavens and the clouds
are split asunder and the angels are sent down in a grand
descent, the dominion that day will belong truly to the
All-Merciful; it will be a harsh day for the unbelievers”
(XXV, 25–26).

The Quran often refers to the angels’ eschatological function

not only at the resurrection, but also at death and in heaven
and hell: “The angel of death, who has been charged with
you, will gather you; then to your Lord you will be returned”
(XXXII, 11). “If you could only see when the evildoers are in
the agonies of death and the angels are stretching out their
hands: ‘Give up your souls!’” (VI, 93). “Believers, guard
yourselves and your families against a Fire whose fuel is men
and stones, and over which are harsh, terrible angels” (LXVI,
6). “Gardens of Eden which they shall enter . . . and the
angels shall enter unto them from every gate” (XIII, 23).
Several of these angels are mentioned by name. Riḍwān
(“Good-pleasure,” IX, 21; LVII, 20) is taken to be the proper
name of the angel given charge of paradise, whereas Mālik
(“Master,” XLIII, 77) rules over hell. Nakīr and Munkar, the
two angels who question the dead in their graves, are
mentioned in many ḥadīths; traditions also speak of Rūmān,
who subjects the dead to various trials.

The sacred history of the Prophet’s mission provides many

examples of explicit angelic activity in key events. As an

580
infant, the Prophet was visited by “two men clothed in white,
carrying a gold basin full of snow.” In the Prophet’s own
words, these angelic beings “split open my breast and brought
forth my heart. This also they split open, taking from it a
black clot which they cast away. Then they washed my breast
with the snow.” God revealed the Quran to the Prophet by
means of the angel Gabriel, who also acted as his guide on the
Night of Ascension (Laylat al-miʿrāj). Many witnesses
reported the participation of angels in battles fought by the
nascent community. Concerning the battle of Badr, the Quran
itself says: “When thy Lord revealed to the angels, ‘I am with
you, so confirm the believers. I shall cast terror into the
unbelievers’ hearts, so strike off their heads and smite their
every finger’” (VIII, 12).

In this world, before death the angels record the deeds of

men: “There are over you watchers, noble writers, who know
whatever you do” (LXXXII, 10–12). “Over every soul there
is a watcher” (LXXXVI, 4). The Prophet added, “They mind
your works: when a work is good, they praise God, and when
one is evil, they ask Him to forgive you.” The Prophet also
reported that angels take turns watching over men and
assemble together at the afternoon and dawn prayers. “Those
who spent the night among you then ascend, and their Lord
asks them—though He is best informed about you—how they
left His servants. They reply, ‘We left them while they were
praying, and we came to them while they were praying.’” In
the same way, when people gather together to remember
(dhikr) God, “the angels surround them, mercy covers them,
peace descends on them, and God remembers them among
those who are with Him.” Among the important pious acts
Muslims perform—in imitation of God and the angels—is the
invocation of blessings (ṣalāt) upon the Prophet: “God and

581
His angels bless the Prophet. Oh believers, you also bless
him, and pray him peace” (XXXIII, 56). Here the angels also
perform a second function; in the words of the Prophet, “God
has angels who travel about in the earth and convey to me
greetings from my people.” As for the evildoers, they call
down upon themselves the angels’ curses. According to a
ḥadīth, “If anyone sells a defective article without calling
attention to the defect, he will be the object of God’s anger
and the angels will curse him continually.” The angels are
worthy of special veneration; when the name of a major angel
is mentioned in Islamic texts, it is usually followed by the
same formula (ʿalayhiʾs-salām, “upon him be peace”) that
follows the name of a prophet. In his Ṣaḥīfat al-sajjādiyyah,
the fourth Shīʿite Imam, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn
(d. 95/714), has left a remarkable prayer, often recited by the
pious, asking God to bestow blessings upon the various
angels.

The Quran provides many keys to the nature and ontological

status of the angels. A verse constantly quoted in later
discussions represents the words of the angels themselves:
“None of us there is but has a known station” (XXXVII, 164).
God also says, “They are honored servants who precede Him
not in speech and act as He commands” (XXI, 27). Basing
themselves on these and other verses, the Quran
commentators were able to discern a hierarchy of different
kinds of angels, each performing a specified task. The Sufi
ʿIzz al-Dīn Kāshānī (d. 735/1334–35), author of the
well-known Persian paraphrase of Abū Hafṣ Suhrawardī’s
ʿAwārif al-maʿārif, summarizes these discussions as follows:

All believers have faith in the existence of the angels, who dwell in the
monasteries of holiness and the communities of divine intimacy. . . . Some of

582
them are more excellent, others lower in degree. Their stations are various
and their ranks multiple, as is explained by the verse, “By the rangers in their
ranks” (XXXVII, 1). Some have been brought nigh to the Presence of
Majesty and cling to the Threshold of Perfection; these are alluded to in the
words, “Then those who are foremost in going ahead” (LXXIX, 4). Others
govern the affairs of creation: “Then those who govern the Command”
(LXXIX, 5). Another group guards the doorway to the Court of
Magnificence: “By the drivers driving (XXXVII, 2). Others sing the praises
of the Presence of Kingship and the Divine Books: “By the reciters of a
Remembrance” (XXXVII, 3). Others carry news and relay reminders: “By
those who deliver a reminder” (LXXVII, 5). Many are their levels and ranks;
each busies himself with a specific command and possesses a known station:
“None of us there is but has a known station” (XXXVII, 164).1

In his ʿAjāʾ ib al-makhlūqāt (Marvels of Creation) the famous

cosmographer al-Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283) utilizes the Quran,
the Hadīth, and the later
tradition to provide a detailed description of fourteen kinds of
angels:2

1. The Bearers of the Throne. Mentioned in the Quran (XL,

7), these are four angels in the form of an eagle, a bull, a lion,
and a man; they are also called “Those brought nigh” (IV,
172). According to Ibn ʿAbbās, God will add four more to
their number on the Day of Resurrection; hence, the Quran
says, “On that day the Terror shall come to pass and heaven
shall be split . . . ; the angels shall stand upon its borders, and
on that day eight shall carry above them the Throne of thy
Lord” (LXIX, 15–17).

2. The Spirit. He occupies one rank, and the remaining angels

together occupy another rank, a fact alluded to in the verse,
“On the day the Spirit and the angels stand in ranks . . .”
(LXXVIII, 38). He is charged with governing the spheres, the
planets, and everything beneath the moon—in other words, all

583
the affairs of heaven and earth. Certain traditions place all the
angels under his control, making him correspond to the
Creative Principle itself.3

3. Isrāfīl. He delivers commands, places spirits within bodies,

and will blow the trumpet on the Last Day. With one of his
four wings he fills the west, with the second he fills the east,
with the third he descends from heaven to earth, and with the
fourth he keeps himself veiled. His two feet are below the
seventh earth, and his head reaches the pillars of the Throne.
When God wants something to happen in creation, He causes
the Pen to write upon the Tablet, which is situated between
Isrāfīl’s eyes, and then Isrāfīl relays the command to Michael.

4. Gabriel. According to ʿĀʾishah and others, the Prophet saw

him in his true form only twice, as is indicated by the Quran:
“This is naught but a revelation revealed, taught him by one
terrible in power, very strong [i.e., Gabriel]; he stood poised,
being on the higher horizon. . . . He saw him another time by
the Lote Tree of the Far Boundary” (LIII, 4–14). The first
vision took place at the cave of Ḥirāʾ, during the revelation of
the first verses of the Quran, the second during the miʿrāj..
According to another account, having seen Gabriel in his true
form, the Prophet fainted. Regaining consciousness, he said,
“Glory be to God! I did not know that any of the creatures
were like this!” Gabriel replied, “What if you had seen Isrāfīl?
He has twelve wings, one of which is in the east and the other
in the west. The Throne rests upon his shoulders, yet he
shrinks because of God’s Tremendousness until he becomes
like a suckling child.”

5. Michael. Mentioned by name once in the Quran (II, 98), he

is charged with providing nourishment for bodies and

584
knowledge for souls. He stands above the “Swarming Sea”
(LII, 6) in the seventh heaven, and if he were to open his
mouth, the heavens would fit within it like a mustard seed in
the
ocean. According to a ḥadīth, “Every prophet has two viziers
from the inhabitants of heaven and two from the inhabitants
of earth; my two from heaven are Gabriel and Michael.”
When Isrāfīl blows the trumpet, Gabriel will stand at his right
hand and Michael at his left.

6. ʿIzrāʾīl. He is mentioned by the Quran as the “angel of

death”; his name is supplied by the commentators.

7. The cherubim (al-karrūbiyyūn). They have withdrawn into

the precinct of Holiness and turned their attention away from
all but God; drowned in the contemplation of His Beauty,
they “glorify Him by night and day, never failing” (XXI, 20).

8. The angels of the seven heavens. Ibn ʿAbbās mentions the

form of these angels and the name of the angel in charge of
each heaven as follows (beginning with the sphere of the
moon): cattle, Ismāʿīl; eagles, Mīkhāʾīl; vultures, Ṣāʿidyāʾīl;
horses, Ṣalṣāʾīl; houris, Kalkāʾīl; heavenly youths (ghilmān),
Samkhāʾīl; mankind, Rūfāʾīl.

9. The guardian angels. They are also called the “honored

writers” (LXXXII, 11); two of them are charged with each
human being.

10. The attendant angels (XIII, 11). They descend upon

mankind with blessings and ascend with news of their works.

11. Nakīr and Munkar. They question the dead in their graves.

585
12. The journeyers (sayyāḥūn). They visit assemblies where
men remember the Name of God.

13. Hārūt and Mārūt (II, 102). See below, p. 341.

14. The angels charged with each existent thing. They keep
things in good order and ward off corruption. The number of
them charged with each thing is known only to God.

Cosmology: The Angels and the Macrocosm

Systematic analyses of the ontological function of the angels

are found in the writings of certain philosophers and Sufis.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (d. 428/1037), the greatest of the
Peripatetics, wrote a separate Treatise on the Angels, in which
he shows that the angelic hierarchy affirmed by Islam
corresponds to the gradation of intelligences discerned by the
philosophers. He identifies the ten Intellects that form the
hierarchy of intelligible existence with ten angels, the lowest
of whom is Gabriel, that is, the Active Intellect (al-ʿaql
al-faʿʿāl). Just as Gabriel is the celestial intermediary who
conveys knowledge to the prophets, so also he and the angels
under his command are the immediate source of every
intelligible form that enters the human mind. In other words,
nothing can be known without the intervention of the angels.
The Sage attains to supreme knowledge by purifying
himself of the dark clouds of the lower world and establishing
contact with the Active Intellect at the center of his own
being. As H. Corbin has shown so forcefully, the loss of this
dimension of Ibn Sīnā’s teaching in the West helped prepare
the ground for the secularization of knowledge and the eclipse
of religion.4

586
Though Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy became more and more
“occidentalized” at the hands of Christian thinkers, it was
increasingly “orientalized” by the Muslims, who placed
ever-greater emphasis upon the Orient, the source of the
intelligible lights known as angels. Here Shihāb al-Dīn
Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), the founder of the Illuminationist
School (ishrāq), plays a key role. Combining the rational
scheme of Ibn Sīnā with a suprarational vision of the pleroma
of lights, he made full use of the Zoroastrian angelology of
pre-Islamic Iran, recognizing within it a powerful tool with
which to explain the nature of the unseen world. For example,
in his treatise called The Song of Gabriel’s Wing, Suhrawardī
explains that all of creation manifests the luminous Words of
God, which radiate from His noble countenance. The first
Word of God is the supreme light, referred to in the Prophet’s
words, “If the sun’s face were to become manifest, it would
be worshiped in place of God.” The last of these “greatest
words” or archangels is Gabriel, from whom the spirits of all
mankind come into existence, each as a word of God. From
him an infinite number of “smaller words” also enter into
manifestation; alluding to them the Quran says, “Though all
the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea [were
ink]—seven seas after it to replenish it—yet would the words
of God not be exhausted” (XXXI, 27). Between the greatest
words and the smaller words dwell the “intermediate words,”
the hosts of angels.

Gabriel, Suhrawardī continues, has two wings. The right wing

is made of pure light and is totally disengaged (mujarrad)
from creation and connected to God, who is Absolute Being.
But the left wing displays a trace of darkness, like the spots
on the face of the full moon. It represents Gabriel’s own
personal existence, which has one side turned away from God

587
and toward nonexistence. When a shadow falls down from
Gabriel’s mottled left wing, this lower world of falsehood and
deception comes into existence. Hence the Prophet said, “God
created the creatures in darkness,” thereby alluding to the
dark stains on the left wing, “then He sprinkled them with
some of His light,” alluding to the ray of light that shines
down from the right wing. The Quran says, “He made the
darkness and the light” (VI, 1). In the present context, the
darkness that God made is this world of deception, and the
light that follows it is a ray from the right wing, the source of
every light that falls into the lower world. Hence, concludes
Suhrawardī:

The World of Deception is the song and shadow of Gabriel’s wing, that is,
his left wing, while enlightened souls derive from his right wing. The realities
that God deposits in the minds of human beings all derive from the right
wing, as, for example, “He has written faith upon their hearts, and He has
confirmed them with a spirit from Himself” (Quran 58:22). . . . But Wrath,
the Cry (cf. Quran 11:67), and mishaps derive from the left wing.5

The Sufis developed a number of cosmological schemes

making use of the Quran, the Ḥadīth literature, the insights of
the philosophers (especially those who were more mystically
inclined), and their own vision of the unseen world. One of
the clearest schemes is found in the Persian writings of Ṣadr
al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), Ibn ʿArabī’s chief disciple.
Having discussed the Divine Essence and Attributes, he turns
to God’s Acts (afʿāl) or creatures, which are of two
kinds—those that belong to the world of the spirits (arwāḥ)
and those that belong to the world of corporeal bodies
(ajsām). The Quran refers to these two as the command and
the creation (e.g., VII, 54). The creation, also called the lower
world, the world of the visible (shahādat), and the dominion
(mulk), is the world to which our sensory faculties have

588
access. The command, also referred to as the higher world,
the world of the unseen (ghayb), and the kingdom (malakūt),
is inaccessible to sense perception. In the Quran, “No! I swear
by what you see” refers to the world of corporeal bodies,
while the rest of the passage, “and by what you do not see”
(LIX, 38–39), alludes to the world of the spirits.

After briefly describing the structure of the cosmos,

al-Qūnawī turns to explaining the nature of the creatures that
dwell in its various levels. The world of the spirits is
inhabited by two kinds of angels:

(1) The cherubim pay no attention to the world of corporeal

bodies and are divided into two classes: (a) The “enraptured
ones” (muhayyamūn) have no news of the world and its
inhabitants since, in the words of the ḥadīth, “They have been
enraptured by the Majesty and Beauty of God ever since their
creation.” The Prophet described them by saying, “God has a
white earth in which the sun takes thirty days to cross the sky,
and each of these days is thirty times longer than the days of
the lower world. That earth is filled with creatures who do not
know that God has been disobeyed in the earth or that He has
created Adam and Iblis.” (b) The “Inhabitants of the
Invincibility” (ahl-i jabarūt) are enthralled by the vision of
God and act as chamberlains for the court of Divinity and
intermediaries for the effusion of Lordship. Their Lord and
Master, called the Greatest Spirit, is the highest of the
archangels and chief of the supreme council (al-malaʾ
al-aʿlā). In one respect he is known as the “Supreme Pen,”
for, according to the Prophet, “The first thing created by God
was the Pen.” In another respect he is called the First
Intellect, for, again in the Prophet’s words: “The first

589
thing created by God was the Intellect. He said to it, ‘Come
forward,’ so it came forward. He said to it, ‘Go backward,’ so
it went backward. Then He said, ‘By My Majesty and Might,
I have created no creature more honored in My eyes than
thee. Through thee I shall give, through thee I shall take,
through thee I shall reward, and through thee I shall punish.’”
The Greatest Spirit stands in the first row of this group, while
the Holy Spirit, also known as Gabriel, stands in the last.
“None of us there is but has a known station” (XXXVII, 164).

590
30. “Alexander and Khidr in quest of the Foundation of Life
of Nizami,” Supplement Persian 1956, Folio 245.

(2) Angels of the second kind govern and control the world of
corporeal bodies. Called the Spirituals (rūḥāniyyūn [read by

591
some authorities as rawḥāniyyūn, the Reposeful]), they also
are of two classes: (a) The inhabitants of the upper kingdom
control the heavenly spheres, (b) The inhabitants of the lower
kingdom govern earthly things. At least one of them is
charged with everything found in the corporeal universe. A
pre-Islamic prophet said, “Everything has an angel,” while the
Prophet Muḥammad reported that an angel descends with
every drop of rain. Those who are endowed with mystical
vision say that seven angels are needed for a single leaf to be
created on a tree. The Ḥadīth literature mentions angels of
mountains, wind, thunder, and lightning. But, says al-Qūnawī,
unless the beauty of “So glory be to Him, in whose hand is
the kingdom (malakūt) of each thing” (XXXVI, 83) throws
off its veil, you will not be able to grasp the inward meaning
of these sayings.

Al-Qūnawī then turns to the human being, whom he calls the

“subtle essence of Lordship” (laṭīfa-yi rubūbiyyat). Man is the
quintessential mystery of the world of the kingdom.
Compounded of both worlds, spiritual and corporeal, he is the
most perfect existent thing. No intermediary stands between
him and God, while he acts as intermediary between God and
all other creatures. Only the supreme council is exempt from
his control.

There are also other worlds, situated on intermediary levels.

The fiery spirits, known as the jinn and the satans, can be
classified as part of the lower kingdom. But between the
world of the spirits and the world of the corporeal bodies
stands another group of worlds, often referred to collectively
as the world of image exemplars (mithāl) or the world of
imagination (khayāl). Everyone is able to perceive a trace of

592
this world in dreams, and it is here that the events described
in the eschatological literature take place.

Embodiment of spirits, spiritualization of corporeal bodies, personification of

moral qualities and works, manifestation of meanings in appropriate forms,
and contemplation of disengaged realities in corporeal forms and semblances
all take place in this world. In it the Prophet saw Gabriel in the form of [his
contemporary] Diḥyah Kalbī. The spirits of past prophets and
saints that are contemplated in forms and semblances by shaykhs and Masters
of the Way dwell in this world. Khiḍr is also seen in this world.6

In its entirety the above passage classifies all existents into

five broad categories, called elsewhere by al-Qūnawī the Five
Divine Presences: God, the spiritual world, the intermediate
world of imagination, the sensory world, and the perfect man,
who embraces all these Presences within himself. In his
Arabic works, al-Qūnawī follows Ibn ʿArabī by pointing out
that the angels correspond to the spiritual faculties of the
perfect man, who is the prototype of both mankind and the
universe:

Animal men [i.e., those human beings who have not attained to spiritual
perfection] are forms manifesting the properties of the totality of the
Human-Divine Reality [elsewhere called the Perfect Man] in respect of that
Reality’s outward manifestation. The angels with all their various degrees are
forms that manifest the properties of Its inward states and faculties. Thus the
Supreme Angels and the Bearers of the Throne are related [to the Perfect
Man] as the major organs are related to the faculties deposited in each of the
limbs [of the human body]. The planets correspond to the limbs. The angels
who dwell below the Bearers of the Throne pertain to the remaining faculties
and to the specific characteristics of each faculty.7

In Ibn ʿArabī’s voluminous writings, especially the Futūḥāt

al-makkiyyah, there are many references to and discussions of
the angels and the role they play in the cosmos. One of his
followers, Saʿīd al-Dīn Farghānī (d. ca. 700/1300), clarifies
some of his master’s teachings by connecting the archangels

593
to four fundamental attributes of God: Life, Knowledge, Will,
and Power, which are often called the Four Pillars of Divinity.
He begins by referring to the Quranic “Guarded Tablet,” upon
which the Pen is said to write out God’s knowledge of
creation and which the cosmologists call the Universal Soul,
the receptive complement of the First or Universal Intellect.
Each of the Four Pillars of Divinity is reflected in a specific
form within the tablet without excluding the properties of the
other three pillars. Isrāfīl is the locus of manifestation for
Life, the fundamental root from which all other perfections
derive. Isrāfīl’s connection with Life is illustrated by the fact
that his first blast on the trumpet (al-ṣūr) brings all life in this
world to an end and his second blast begins the everlasting
life of the next world. Gabriel represents the pillar of
Knowledge, which explains why he is the angel of revelation,
conveying all sorts of knowledge in various degrees. The
Quran refers to him as a teacher in the verses, “This is naught
but a revelation revealed, taught to him by one terrible in
power, very strong . . .” (LIII, 4–5). Michael manifests Will,
since he is put in charge of handing out the formal and
supraformal sustenance upon which the continued existence
of the creatures depends. This includes spiritual food like
knowledge and understanding,
imaginary food like position and honor, and sensory food like
property and the bounty of the earth. ʿIzrāʾīl is the locus of
manifestation for Power, since he overwhelms all things
through death and annihilation.

Just as all the Divine Names and all the creatures are
subordinate to these Four Pillars, so also all spirits and angels
are subordinate to and faculties of the four archangels, with
the exception of the Supreme Pen and the enraptured angels,
since they are the “exalted ones” who were not included in

594
God’s command when He ordered the angels to bow down
before Adam. This is mentioned in God’s words to Iblis:
“What prevented thee to bow down before what I created with
My own two hands? Hast thou waxed proud? Or art thou one
of the Exalted Ones?” (XXXVIII, 76).

Farghānī then classifies all the angels, whether “exalted” or

encompassed by the tablet, in a scheme reminiscent of what
we have seen elsewhere but fresh enough to warrant a
summary. There are three basic kinds of angels: The first kind
cannot take a locus of manifestation, whether imaginal,
elementary, or sensory. The second kind must have a locus of
manifestation on at least one of these levels. The third kind is
free and nondelimited, since it may or may not manifest itself.
The first kind includes the enraptured angels. The second kind
is divided into two classes, depending upon the relationship to
the locus in which the angel manifests itself. Loci of
manifestation are ascribed to the first class, whereas the
angels of the second class are ascribed to the loci. (1) The
first class of the second kind includes the angels of the
heavens and the earth, to whom are attributed all sorts of
affairs and effects that play the role of their faculties. They
are alluded to in such Quranic verses as, “then those who
govern the Command” (LXXIX, 5), “by those who scatter far
and wide” (LI, 1), “by those that distribute by command” (LI,
4), “then those who are foremost in going ahead” (LXXIX,
4). (2) The second class includes human spirits, which are
attached to bodily forms and constitutions, as well as the
spirituality (rūḥāniyyah) of every individual of any kind,
including inanimate things, animals, and the jinn.

The third kind of angels is limited neither by possessing a

locus of manifestation nor by a lack of one. Such angels

595
manifest themselves in whatever form they desire, or without
any form. They are the messengers and emissaries between
God and His creatures referred to in the verse, “Messengers
having wings—two, three, and four; He adds to creation as
He will” (XXXV, 1). Here “wings” refers to the varous
faculties possessed by the angels. Each of them must have
two “wings” to fly in the proximity of God, one being the
faculty of knowledge, the other the faculty of action through
which it acts according to its knowledge. If God adds a third
wing, that is the ability to teach others, as for example in the
verse concerning Gabriel, where the Prophet is said to have
been “taught by one terrible in power,
very strong” (LIII, 5). The fourth wing is action for the sake
of others, as in the verse concerning some of the angels,
“They proclaim the praise of their Lord, and have faith in
Him, and they ask forgiveness for those who have faith” (XL,
7). The four wings represent the fundamental kinds of angelic
faculties, and other faculties branch off from these four. But
there is no limit to the number of wings or faculties that an
angel may have, and this is why the verse about wings ends
with the words, “He adds to creation as He will.” The
well-known ḥadīth in which the Prophet reported that Gabriel
appeared to him with six hundred wings refers to the faculties
that God adds to His creatures as He will.8

Psychology: The Angels and the Microcosm

Just as the angels fill the macrocosm, so also they populate

the microcosm. As Farghānī has pointed out, from a certain
point of view the human spirit is itself an angel; all of the
faculties of the soul are then lesser angels subordinate to it. In
commenting on al-Qūnawī’s statement quoted above that
“seven angels are needed for a single leaf to be created on a

596
tree,” Jāmī (d. 898/1492) remarks, following the teachings of
the natural philosophers, that these are the faculties of the
vegetative soul: the nutritive, augmentative, generative,
attractive, digestive, retentive, and expulsive.9 Al-Ghazzālī
(d. 505/1111) had already shown that this type of
interpretation was in accord with the mainstream of Islamic
thought. In the Iḥyāʾ he explains that the smallest morsel of
food cannot become part of him who eats it without the
intervention of a number of angels. His terminology in
explaining the angelic functions follows the standard terms
used by the philosophers for the natural faculties: “There
must be an angel to attract the food toward flesh and bones,
for food does not move by itself. A second is necessary to
retain the food . . .” etc.10

Sufi writings emphasize that the angels are created of an

intelligible light that corresponds to the intellect within man.
In Rūmī’s words, “The intellect is the same kind as the angel,
even though the angel—in contrast to the intellect—has
assumed a form and possesses wings and feathers; but in
reality they are one thing and perform the same activity.”11
The specific angel to whom the intellect corresponds is
Gabriel, whom Rūmī seems to identify with the First Intellect.
Ultimate spiritual perfection, attained by the Prophet and
certain of his followers, involves union with the One, who lies
far beyond any of His creatures. Rūmī praises the intellect but
holds that love is a higher reality, since it alone can bring
about union. Once intellect takes you to the door of the king,
“then divorce the intellect, for
now it will bring you only loss.”12 “Like Gabriel the intellect
says, ‘O Aḥmad, if I take one more step I will be
consumed.”13 If the intellect corresponds to man’s angelic
substance, his lower soul or ego (nafs) represents his satanic

597
side: “The ego and satan were a single individual, but they
have shown themselves in two different forms.”14

Other Sufis make similar use of the traditional data. ʿAzīz

Nasafī (d. before 700/1300) writes: “When the intellect
assumed the vicegerency in the microcosm, all the
microcosmic angels prostrated themselves to it except fancy
(wahm), who refused. . . . When the intellect assumed the
vicegerency, a call came to it, ‘O intellect! Know thyself and
know thy attributes and acts, so that thou mayest know My
Attributes and Acts.”15 Nasafī draws correspondences among
all the parts of the macrocosm and microcosm:

The sperm drop that falls into the womb represents (numūdār) the primary
substance [of the universe]. When [the embryo] becomes fourfold, it
represents the four elements and the four natures. Once the parts of the body
appear, the outward parts—the head, hands, stomach, pudendum, and
feet—represent the seven climes, while the inward parts—the lungs, brain,
kidneys, heart, gall-bladder, liver, and spleen—represent the seven heavens.

Next Nasafī declares that each organ corresponds to one of

the heavens and to the angels that inhabit it. His remarks can
be summarized in the following table:

598
Nasafī concludes by saying that the animal spirit corresponds
to the eighth heaven (the footstool or sphere of the fixed
stars), the psyche (rūḥ-i nafsānī) represents the ninth heaven
(the Throne or the sphere of spheres), and the intellect is
God’s vicegerent ruling over all.16

One of the most penetrating analyses of the role of the angels

in the microcosm is found in the writings of the philosopher
Bābā Afḍal Kāshānī (d. ca. 610/1213–14), a follower of
Avicenna deeply influenced by the Hermetic currents of
Greco-Islamic thought. He brings out with clarity in liquid
Persian prose the ascending movement of all creatures in the
universe on the path of the “return” (maʿād) to God. Each
level of creation from the mineral up to the human represents
a fuller actualization of Being, whose fundamental
characteristic is pure consciousness. Bābā Afḍal calls the
world a tree whose fruit is mankind, mankind a tree whose
fruit is the soul, the soul a tree whose fruit is Intellect, and
Intellect a tree whose fruit is the meeting with God.

In this cosmos dominated by the movement toward the

self-consciousness of the self (dhāt), the four archangels
represent the specific powers of the human soul, as contrasted
with the powers of the mineral, vegetal, and animal souls.
Isrāfīl, who breathes spirits into bodies, corresponds to
thought; Michael, who gives creatures their sustenance, to
memory; Gabriel, who delivers God’s messages to creatures,
to speech; and ʿIzrāʾīl, who takes away souls or spirits, to
writing.

On the macrocosmic level, ʿIzrāʾīl is the human soul, which

relates to other spiritual powers in the same way that the hand
relates to the body, since its function is to bring unseen

599
meanings into the corporeal world. Just as a writer takes ideas
from the unseen world of thought and causes them to fall into
the world of the hand and paper, so the soul manifests the
realities of its own world on the bodily level. The human
being is God’s vicegerent in the creation’s return to God (just
as the First Intellect is His vicegerent in the journey away
from God). In this process the soul is like ʿIzrāʾīl (and unlike
Isrāfīl) in that it “takes” spirits (it does not “give” them), since
its specific characteristic is to know things, and to know a
thing is to separate out its spirit or “meaning” (maʿnā). The
soul rules over every transformation man undergoes during
the return, appearing at each level in an appropriate guise.
Each time the individual passes on to a new level of existence
during his own development, from the period in the womb
through the mineral, vegetal, animal, and human stages until
the meeting with God, he meets the angel of death—his own
true soul—and experiences the “taking” of the soul with
which he mistakenly identifies himself. At the same time, he
also meets with God’s forgiveness (āmurzish), since he
moves on to a higher level of being and consciousness. Bābā
Afḍal summarizes this process in the following terms:

The angel of death—the taker of the mineral soul—is the vegetal soul, which
delivers the mineral soul over to God’s forgiveness by removing it from its
mineral form and displaying it in a nobler form. The taker of the vegetal soul
is the animal soul, which delivers the plant’s soul out from vegetal clothing
into God’s forgiveness by dressing it in an animal robe. The taker of the
animal soul is the human soul, which separates the animal soul from the
animal’s form and body through the act of knowing and which displays it in a
more lasting form. At every station the soul passes through during these
transformations, it never desires to return to the previous state, since no
mature person wants to go back to childhood, nor does a man who has
knowledge desire to return to ignorance. . . . Hence you should know that the
angel of death brings good news.17

600
Mankind and the Angels

A series of ever more luminous beings fills the hierarchy

between man and God, whether this hierarchy is viewed as an
inward or an outward reality, or as both at once. The angels
are so all-pervasive that man cannot perform a single task or
conceive a single idea without their aid. Innumerable Quranic
verses and prophetic sayings praise their excellence. It was
only natural for certain Muslim thinkers to conclude that the
angels are the best of God’s creatures. But other traditional
data support the view that mankind is superior, and in the
long theological debate that has ensued, this position has been
confirmed almost universally. For mankind is made directly
in the image of God and reflects Him in a total fashion,
whereas the angels, though more excellent in substance, do
not possess the same centrality in the Divine Scheme.

Perhaps the Quranic passage most often cited to prove

mankind’s superiority is the following: “When We said to the
angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves to Adam,’ they prostrated
themselves, except Iblis” (II, 34, etc.). As for Iblis, in one of
the five instances where this verse occurs the Quran adds,
“He was one of the jinn” (XVIII, 50). The position taken by
al-Bayḍāwī (d. ca. 685/1286) and others that Iblis was an
angel is rejected by most authorities. In another passage Iblis
tells God why he refused to obey His command: “I am better
than he; Thou createdst me of fire, and him Thou createdst of
clay” (VII, 12). Elsewhere the Quran alludes to the creation of
jinn from fire (XV, 27; LV, 15), and, according to the
universally accepted ḥadīth related by ʿĀʾishah, the angels
were created from light, the jinn from fire, and mankind from
clay.

601
Most authorities have held that the angels’ prostration
indicates the superiority of the prophets and believers. As
Rūmī remarks, “How could God’s Justice and Gentleness
allow a rose to prostrate itself before a thorn?”18

An early Quran commentator, Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī (d.

530/1135–36),
summarizes some of the arguments for the superiority of
human beings as follows: Everyone recognizes that the
prophets and the believers are more excellent than the angels,
since God showed the former various favors and kindnesses
that He did not show to the latter. Though the angels are
nearer to the Divine Presence, they are blinded by the veils of
Awesomeness and the fiery splendor of Majesty, while the
prophets and believers have been singled out for the light of
contemplation, the breeze of intimacy, the radiance of
unveiling, and the favor of love. Among the proofs of the
superiority of human beings are Quranic verses such as the
following: God affirms His love for the prophets and the
faithful with His words, “He loves them and they love Him”
(V, 54). Concerning Abraham in particular He says, “God has
taken Abraham as a friend” (IV, 125). Concerning some of
the prophets He says, “We purified them with a quality most
pure . . . and in Our sight they are of the chosen, the
excellent” (XXXVIII, 46). About the believers God declares,
“Those who believe and do righteous deeds are the best of
creatures” (XCVIII, 7). Among the ḥadīths that confirm the
superiority of human beings, the following can be cited: “The
angels said to God, ‘Our Lord, Thou hast created the children
of Adam and appointed them for the world, so appoint for us
the next world.’ God replied, ‘I will not make My righteous
servant—him whom I created with My own two hands [cf.
Quran XXXVIII, 75]—like him to whom I said “Be!” and he

602
was.’” Or again, “The Prophet said, ‘On the Day of
Resurrection, nothing will be greater than the children of
Adam.’ Someone said, ‘Oh Messenger of God! Not even the
angels?’ He replied, ‘Not even the angels. They are compelled
like the sun and the moon.’” The sun and the moon have no
choice but to rise and to set, and in the same way the angels
have no choice but to obey God. Unlike human beings, they
have no “soul commanding to evil” (XII, 53), no sensuality
pulling them this way and that, no Satan whispering to them
and distorting their vision, and no lower world to fill them
with fancies. Their obedience is part of their very nature, like
the breathing of an animal.19

603
31. “Angels ministering to Ibrahim ibn Adham,” MS Pers.
B.1, Folio 33r.

The nature of man in relation to the angels is summarized in

an oft-quoted ḥadīth: “God created the angels from intellect

604
without sensuality (shahwah), the beasts from sensuality
without intellect, and mankind from both intellect and
sensuality. So when a person’s intellect overcomes his
sensuality, he is better than the angels; but when his
sensuality overcomes his intellect, he is worse than the
beasts.” Nasafī comments, “The angels are luminous
existence, while the beasts are tenebrous existence. Neither
the angels nor the beasts have more than one of the two
worlds, but man has both.”20 Rūmī often comments on this
ḥadīth. In one instance he remarks in his inimitable style:
“Man’s situation is comparable to an angel’s wing
that has been attached to a donkey’s tail so that perhaps,
through the angel’s radiance and companionship, the donkey
may itself become an angel.”21

A similar lesson can be understood from the story of the two

angels Hārūt and Mārūt, alluded to in the Quran (II, 102) and
amplified by the commentators—though certain authorities,
such as Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), deny that these two were
angels. When the sons of Adam were given the earth, the
angels marveled at their iniquities and protested to God: “Our
Lord, Thou hast favored these dust-creatures of the earth, but
they disobey Thee.” God replied, “If that sensuality that is
within them were within you, your state would be the same.”
The angels said, “We would not rebel against Thee and
disobey Thy command.” At God’s request they chose two of
their number to be sent to the earth possessing sensuality and
the other attributes of man. Hārūt and Mārūt were the most
worshipful and humble of the angels; sending them down to
the earth, God commanded them to avoid idolatry,
fornication, wine, and the unjust spilling of blood. Eventually
they committed all these sins and God gave news of their
state to the angels in heaven. From that day on, the angels

605
have continued to “ask forgiveness for everyone on earth”
(XLIII, 5), for they realize that man’s sensuality is a
tremendous burden, and those able to overcome it are truly
the best of creatures.22

The superiority of human beings over the angels has not been
affirmed categorically by all who maintain it. In the passages
quoted above, al-Qūnawī refers to the superiority of the
“supreme council” while his disciple Farghānī speaks of the
“exalted ones” who were not required to prostrate themselves
before Adam. In a similar manner Ibn ʿArabī writes as
follows:

Once in a vision I asked the Messenger of God about the drawn-out debate
over the excellence of mankind and the angels. He replied, “The angels are
superior.” I asked what I should say if asked the reason. He answered, “You
know that I am the best of mankind. This has been established among you,
and it is correct. Now I related from God that He said, ‘When someone
remembers Me in himself, I remember him in Myself; and when someone
remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in an assembly better than
it.’ How many there were who remembered God in an assembly when I was
among them! Yet God remembered them in an assembly better than the
assembly in which I was.23

In other passages, Ibn ʿArabī looks at the matter from a

different point of view. In the first chapter of the Fuṣūṣ he
writes:

The angels do not grasp that which is supplied by the ontological plane of the
vicegerent [i.e., man], nor do they grasp the worship of the Essence that is
demanded by the ontological level of God. For no one can know God except
in keeping with what his own essence provides, and the angels do not
possess Adam’s all-comprehensiveness [since only mankind manifests the
Name “Allāh,” which comprehends all other Names]. They do not grasp the
Divine Names pertaining only to Adam’s all-comprehensive level. They
glorify God and call Him holy (Quran II, 30), but they do not know that He
has Names which their knowledge does not embrace. Thus they do not

606
glorify Him by these Names, nor do they call Him holy in the same way that
Adam does.24

Inspired by the above passage, Farghānī enumerates eighteen

blameworthy qualities of the angels that were only corrected
by mankind’s vicegerency.25

The contradiction between the two positions taken by Ibn

ʿArabī and his followers may perhaps be resolved by saying
that in the first case they consider mankind as the microcosm,
whereas in the second they look upon him as the perfect man,
the intermediary between the Divine Essence and all
creatures, including the Greatest Spirit and the angels.
However this may be, the position set down in the Fuṣūṣ has
dominated Sufi teaching up to the present. One of its more
eloquent spokesman was the poet and metaphysician Jāmī:

At the time of Adam’s creation, the angels spoke in pride and pretension:

“O God, we hymn Thy Praise, we are Thy righteous glorifiers, so why

Dost Thou stir up a form out of water and clay?

He will work corruption and spill blood. . . . [cf. Quran II, 30]

We are roses—what good are thorns and twigs? What use is a fly in face of a
phoenix?”

Then “God taught Adam all the Names” (II, 31), i.e., the realities of things.

In the eyes of the gnostic, the Names of God are naught but the realities of
the existent entities.

God taught him all the Names, thus making him understand the Attributes of
His Essence.

Then He said to the angels, “Tell Me those Names” (cf. Quran II, 31).

607
All the angels had gone astray through pride, but all admitted their
incapacity:

“We do not know beyond what Thou hast taught us; we understand nothing
but what we understand” (cf. II, 31). . . .

Then God’s call reached Adam a second time: “Tell them the Names through
which thou hast become manifest, for thou hast knowledge of their
mysteries” (cf. II, 33).

Adam began to speak at God’s command, explaining each and every one of
the Names,

For man is the whole, while others are parts.

The whole contains everything in the parts, but the parts cannot attain to the
whole.

No part knows the whole perfectly, but all parts exist within it.

When the whole comes to know its own essence, then it knows all the parts.

But if the part comes to perceive itself, it cannot step beyond this knowledge.

Even if it gains knowledge of itself, it remains ignorant of the other parts.

What is man? An all-comprehensive isthmus, within which is placed the form

of both Creator and creation.

He is a summary transcription of the Essence of God and His ineffable

Attributes.

Joined to the details of the Invincible Realm, he comprises the realities of the
Kingdom.

His inward nature is drowned in the Ocean of Oneness, while his outward
substance stays dry-lipped on the shore of separation.

Every single Attribute of God is to be found in his essence. . . .

In the same way, every reality of the world is placed within him,

608
Whether the spheres or the four elements, the minerals, plants, or animals.

Written within him is the form of good and evil, kneaded into him is the
character of devil and beast.

If he is not the mirror of God’s Countenance, then why did the angels
prostrate themselves to him?

He is the mirror that reflects the Beauty of the Immaculate Presence. If Iblis
cannot fathom this, what does it matter?26

Islamic spirituality can only be envisaged in connection with

the angels, who are intertwined with all dimensions of human
life as seen by Islam. The key events of sacred history, such
as the Revelation itself, the Prophet’s Nocturnal Ascent, and
the battle of Badr, are explicit instances of angelic
intervention. The angels record the deeds of each individual
from birth to death. They are the constant companions of the
faithful, participating with them especially in their prayers,
and play a soteriological and illuminative function for those
who follow the path of spiritual realization. By God’s leave
they govern all macrocosmic and microcosmic forces, and
they accompany man to the next abode on his departure from
the earthly plane. To speak of Islamic spirituality from its
most popular to its most esoteric level is to call attention to
the role of the angelic hierarchy.

Notes

1. Kāshānī, Miṣbāḥ al-hidāyah, ed. J. Humāʾī (Tehran:

Chāpkhāna-yi Majlis, 1325/1946) 42.

2. Al-Qazwīnī, ʿAjāʾ ib al-makhlūqāt, on the margin of

al-Damīrī, Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Istiqāmah,
1374/1954) 1:94–107.

609
3. For a far more detailed account of the nature and kinds of
angels according to both Shīʿite and Sunni sources, see
Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (2nd ed.; Beirut: Muʾassasat
al-Wafāʾ, 1983) 56, esp. pp. 202–16.

4. H. Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. W.

Trask (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960) 62, 77,
101–10.

5. Suhrawardī, Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques 3, ed. S.

H. Nasr (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy,
1977) 217–22.

6. Al-Qūnawī, Tabṣirat al-mubtadī wa tadhkirat al-muntahī,

ed. N. ʿA. Ḥabībī Maʿārif 2nd. ser. 1 (Tehran) (1364/1985)
87–88, 89–90, 93, 94.

7. Al-Qūnawī, Al-Nafaḥāt al-ilāhiyyah (Tehran: Ahmad

Shīrāzī, 1316/1898–99) 85.

8. Farghānī, Muntahaʾl-madārik (Cairo: ʿAbd al-Raḥīm

al-Bukhārī, 1293/1876) 1:51–52.

9. Jāmī, Naqd al-nuṣūṣ, ed. W. C. Chittick (Tehran: Imperial

Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977) 32.

10. Quoted in F. Jadaane, “La place des anges dans la

théologie cosmique musulmane,” Studia Islamica 41 (1975)
52.

11. Rūmī, Fīhi mā fīhi, ed. B. Furūzānfar (Tehran: University

of Tehran, 1330/1951) 106; cf. Rūmī, Mathnawī, ed. R. A.
Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1925–45) book 3, vv. 3193, 4054.

610
12. Rūmī, Fīhi mā fīhi, 112.

13. Rūmī, Mathnawī, book 1, v. 1066.

14. Ibid., book 3, v. 4053.

15. Nasafī, Insān-i kāmil, ed. M. Molé (Tehran: Bibliothèque

Iranienne, 1962) 143.

16. Ibid., 147–48.

17. Bābā Afḍal Kāshānī, Jāwidān-nāmah, in Muṣannafāt-i

Afḍal al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Maraqī Kāshānī, ed. M. Mīnuwī
and Y. Mahdawī (Tehran: Dānishgāh, 1331–37/1952–8)
291–92, 315, 319–20.

18. Rūmī, Mathnawī, book 2, v. 3332.

19. Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār, ed. ʿA. A. Ḥikmat (Tehran:

University of Tehran, 1331–39/1952–60) 2:783–84. For a
thorough presentation of the arguments, Quranic and
otherwise, for man’s superiority over the angels, see Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 57:268–317.

20. Nasafī, Insān-i kāmil, 323.

21. Rūmī, Fīhi mā fīhi, 107.

22. Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār, 1:295–98.

23. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūhāt al-makkiyyah (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir,

n.d.) 2:61.

611
24. Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. A. ʿAfīfī (Beirut: Dār
al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1966) 50–51.

25. Farghānī, Muntahaʾ l-madārik, 1:67–71.

26. Jāmī, Haft awrang, ed. M. Mudarrisī-Gīlānī (Tehran:

Kitābfurūshī-yi Saʿdī, 1337/1958) 77–79.

612
613
 18

The Cosmos and the Natural Order

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

We have not revealed unto thee this Quran that thou shouldst be distressed,

But as a reminder unto him who feareth,

A revelation from Him Who created the earth and the high heavens,

The All-Compassionate, who is established on the Throne.

Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the

earth, and whatsoever is between them, and whatsoever is beneath the sod.
(XX, 2–6).

The Cosmos and Revelation

THE REVELATION THAT COMES FROM HIM to Whom

belong the heavens and the earth and all that is between them
and below the earth also addresses itself to all these realms of
the cosmic hierarchy as well as to man. The Quran is, in a
sense, a Revelation unto the whole of creation, and one of its
primary functions is to awaken in man an awareness of the
Divine Presence in that other primordial revelation which is
the created order itself. Primordial man saw the phenomena of
nature in divinis, as the story of Adam in paradise reveals.
Islam, in bestowing upon man access to this primordial nature
and in addressing itself to the primordial man within every
man, unveils once again the spiritual significance of nature
and the ultimaṭely theophanic character of the phenomena of

614
the created order. It enables man to read once again the
eternal message of Divine Wisdom written upon the pages of
the cosmic text.

Islamic spirituality is therefore based not only upon the

reading of the written Quran (al-Qurʾān al-tadwīnī) but also
upon deciphering the text of the cosmic Quran (al-Qurʾān
al-takwīnī) which is its complement.1 Nature in Islamic
spirituality is, consequently, not the adversary but the friend
of the traveler upon the spiritual path and an aid to the person
of spiritual vision2 in his journey through her forms to the
world of the Spirit, which is the origin of both man and the
cosmos. The Quranic Revelation created
not only a community of Muslims but also an Islamic cosmic
ambience in which the signs of God (āyāt Allāh) adorn at
once the souls of men and women and the expanses of the
skies and the seas, the birds and the fish, the stars and the
creatures living in the bosom of the earth. As the text of the
Quran is woven of verses (āyāt), which are the words of God,
so are the events in the souls of men and the phenomena of
nature so many āyāt of the Supreme Author, Who caused the
reality of all things to be written upon the Guarded Tablet
(al-Lawḥ al-Mahfūẓ) by the pen (al-Qalam). As the Quran
itself bears witness, “We shall show them our portents [āyāt]
upon the horizons and within themselves, until it becomes
manifest unto them that it is the Truth” (XLI, 53), and also,
“And in the earth are portents for those whose faith is sure.
And (also) in yourselves. Can ye not see?” (LI, 20–21).3 The
inner relation between man, the cosmos, and Revelation is
clearly demonstrated in the use of the same term (āyah, pl.
āyāt) to designate the verses of the sacred Book, the inner
reality of man, and the verses written upon the pages of the
cosmic book.

615
But not everyone is able to read the message of the cosmic
text. The profane man, no matter how lettered in some human
language, is illiterate as far as the reading of the cosmic text is
concerned. For the Muslim, only the message brought by the
unlettered Prophet can teach man to read the Divine Message
upon the face of creation.4 Even within the fold of those who
have accepted this message, only the spiritually inclined men
and women who can penetrate into the inner meaning of the
message and of themselves can hope to see in the phenomena
of nature the signature of the noumenal world, to see in them
not facts but the vestigia Dei.5 To the extent that man turns to
the spiritual world within, nature unveils her inner message to
him and acts as both support and companion in his spiritual
journey.

Since all levels of cosmic existence belong to God, all

creatures also praise Him with their very existence. The
Quran says, “The seven heavens and the earth and all that
they contain praise Him, nor is there anything that does not
celebrate His praise, though ye understand not their praise.
Behold, He is clement, forgiving” (XVII, 44). Also, “Hast
thou not seen that unto God prostrate themselves whatsoever
is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth—the sun and
the moon and the stars and the hills and the trees and the beast
and many of mankind?” (XXII, 18).6

The Breath of the Compassionate

According to a Sufi doctrine expounded especially by Ibn

ʿArabī, the very substance of the universe consists of the
Breath of the Compassionate (nafas
al-Raḥmān) breathed upon the archetypal realities (al-aʿyān
al-thābitah).7 The very substance of things is, therefore, the

616
breath that issues from the Divine Compassion (al-Raḥmah)
while every creature praises the Lord through its very
existence. The sage hears in the existence of every creature of
nature the invocation (dhikr) of His Name and in the qualities
of the created order reflections of His Attributes. He sees
upon the face of all things the sign of His Oneness, according
to the well-known Arabic poem: “In every creature there
exists a sign (āyah) from Him, Bearing witness that He is
Unique.”8 The Quran emphasizes the Divine Origin of all the
order that is observed in the universe. “He it is who appointed
the sun a splendour and the moon a light, and measured for
her stages, that ye might know the number of the years and
the reckoning. God created not (all) that save in truth
(biʾl-ḥaqq). He detaileth the portents (āyāt) for people who
have knowledge” (X, 6). The Muslim mind is, in fact, much
more impressed by the order and regularity of the natural
order than by those extraordinary events that break that order,
that is, miracles. It is just as miraculous that the sun does rise
every morning from the east as it would be if it were to rise
suddenly from the west. Islam does, however, accept the
existence of miracles and believes that a day will come when,
according to a ḥadīth, the sun will rise from the west.

Moreover, the world is created in truth and by the truth

(biʾl-ḥaqq) and not in vain. “We created not the heaven and
the earth and all that is between them in play” (XXI, 16). The
study of nature can therefore reveal an aspect of Divine
Wisdom provided that study does not divorce the world from
its Divine Principle. The Islamic view of nature permitted and
encouraged the cultivation of the sciences of nature but never
as profane knowledge.9 Even particular branches of the
Islamic sciences such as physics and botany possessed a
spiritual aspect as well as a rational one. Being created in

617
truth, nature reflects the Truth on its own level of reality and
this Truth can be contemplated by the sage gazing upon a
flower as well as by a student of the traditional sciences
studying the works of the Muslim scientists, who carried out
their study of the natural order always in the light of
discovering the vestiges of the Hand of the Divine Artisan.

The Fragility of the World

While it emphasizes that God has created the world by the

truth, the Quran also asserts over and over again, especially in
the last chapters, the fragility of the created order. A day will
come when all the earth, from the mightiest mountain to the
lowliest rock will be rendered unto dust before the Majesty of
God. “And thou seest the mountains, which thou deemest so
firm, pass
away as clouds pass away” (XXVII, 88). The spiritual
significance of nature resides not only in conveying the
message of the One through its beauty, harmony, order, and
the symbolism of its forms, but also in being witness to the
grandeur of the One Who alone abides while all else passes
away. To stand before a mighty mountain and to meditate
upon its passing away before the Divine Majesty are to gain a
glimpse of that Divine Face which alone subsists while all
else dies and perishes, according to the verse, “Everything
perishes save His Face” (XXVIII, 88). But this fragility of the
natural order is not as immediate as that of the world of man,
and Islamic spirituality emphasizes over and over again that
in the span of the ordinary life of humanity the works of man
perish while the order of nature abides. Islam has always
inculcated the importance of man’s being the custodian of
nature and has instructed man not to struggle to destroy it but
rather to live with it in peace, aware that if man seeks to

618
annihilate and subdue nature he will inevitably fail and that it
is always nature that will have the final word.

We must tread carefully upon the earth, treating it with the same respect that
we show to the Book of Allah, for although “He hath made the earth humbled
to you,” and although we are free “to walk in its tracts and eat of His
providing,” yet: “Are ye assured of Him that is in heaven that He might not
cause the earth to swallow you? For behold! The earth is quaking.” (LXVII,
15–16)10

Nothing is farther removed from traditional Islamic

spirituality than the raping of the earth in the name of man’s
earthly welfare and without consideration of the welfare of
the whole of creation.

Nature as Support in the Spiritual Life

Virgin nature is a source of grace in that in its bosom the

Muslim contemplative senses the presence of God and the
resonance of the world of the Spirit. He hears the prayer of
creatures and sees reflected in their complete surrender to the
Divine Will the perfection of the state of islām, which itself is
complete surrender to the Will of God. The saint is the person
whose will is perfectly integrated into and in harmony with
the Divine Will and is therefore, in a sense, the counterpart of
the creatures of nature whose very life is in accordance with
His Will. The prayer of the saint is in fact the prayer on behalf
of all creation and for all creation in the same way that the
Muslim canonical prayer addresses God using the plural form
of the subject to emphasize that man prays as representative
of the whole of creation.11

Nature, moreover, is the sanctuary in which the supreme

Muslim rite of

619
ṣalāt takes place. These canonical prayers can be performed
anywhere in nature, for the whole earth was sanctified by God
to allow Muslims to pray on it.12 The mosque does not in fact
seek to create a “supernatural” space but to recreate within the
man-made ambience of the urban environment, the harmony,
tranquillity, peace, and equilibrium that characterize virgin
nature. Being the creation of the Divine Artisan, virgin nature
is the supreme work of art, a source of inexhaustible beauty,
and the ally of man in quest of God. She remains an ever
present witness to the cosmic and metacosmic reality of the
truth of Islam, and although man may waver in his faith and
religious practice, she abides in her perfect surrender to the
One in her perpetual state of being muslim.

Nature is also a source for gaining knowledge of God’s

Wisdom as reflected in His creation. The laws, activities,
energies, forms, forces, and rhythms of nature reveal a
knowledge that possesses a spiritual significance lying
beyond the domain of nature itself. In fact, nature is also the
source of metaphysical knowledge in the sense that there
exists a symbolic science of nature that is of a metaphysical
character. There is, moreover, an immediate knowledge of a
purely spiritual character imparted by nature to those
qualified to receive such a knowledge. For the contemplative,
nature provides not only such a knowledge but also an aid for
the spiritual life. In her embrace man is already freed from the
pettiness of the human world and savors the foretaste of
paradise. The grandeur of nature—the incredible beauty of
her forms and harmony of rhythms and cycles—can help to
melt the hardened heart and untie the knots in the soul so that
man comes to see nature as the counterpart of that primordial
revelation of which the Arabic Quran is the final
crystallization in the life of present humanity.

620
Islamic Cosmological Sciences

The spiritual significance of nature in Islam cannot be

understood fully without considering the Islamic
cosmological sciences which reveal the imprint of the One
upon the manifold and relate the world of multiplicity to its
Unique Origin. Islamic cosmology acts as a bridge between
the metaphysical teachings of the Quranic Revelation and the
particular sciences and provides the framework whereby
particular branches of knowledge can be sacralized and
integrated into the supreme knowledge of the Shahādah. It
might be said that if all metaphysical knowledge is contained
in the first Shahādah, Lā ilāha illaʾLlāh, all cosmological
knowledge is, in a sense, contained in the second Shahādah,
Muḥammadun rasūl Allāh. Inasmuch as Muḥammad also
means all that is positive in the cosmos, the second
Shahādah means esoterically that all that is positive in the
universe comes from—that is, is rasūl of—God, and that is
precisely the ultimate function of Islamic cosmology.13

The root of all Islamic cosmology is to be found in the Quran,

and the earliest Islamic cosmological studies must be sought
in the works of the Quranic commentators of the first few
generations of Islamic history. There are, however, many
cosmological schemes developed by Muslims on the basis of
Quranic teachings but using languages as diverse as letter
symbolism and the hierarchy of light.14 The Quran itself
contains the principles of several cosmological schemes as
found in such verses as the Throne Verse (āyat al-kursī) and
the Light Verse (āyat al-nūr).15 These verses have been the
subject of numerous commentaries by nearly all classes of
Quranic commentators ranging from theologians to
philosophers to Sufis. Some of the most important works of

621
Quranic cosmology, such as the Mishkāt al-anwār of
al-Ghazzālī and Tafsīr āyat al-nūr of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, are
in fact commentaries upon the Light Verse and certain
ḥadīths that complement this verse.16 The Throne (al-ʿarsh),
the Pedestal (al-kursī), the Supreme Spirit (al-Rūḥ), the four
archangels, the eight angels holding the Throne, and other
aspects of the cosmic and angelic realities described in the
Quran and Ḥadīth literature comprise the foundation of
Islamic cosmology providing spiritual significance for the
universe in which the Muslim lives and breathes.

The goal of Islamic cosmology is to provide a science that

displays the interrelation of all things and the relation of the
levels of the cosmic hierarchy to each other and finally to the
Supreme Principle. Thereby it provides a knowledge that
permits the integration of multiplicity into Unity, a goal
which is no more than a commentary upon the Quranic verse,
“Verily we belong to God and to Him is our return” (II, 156).
By virtue of the integrating and synthesizing power inherent
in the Islamic tradition, various schools of Islamic thought
developed different cosmologies over the centuries, drawing
from many diverse sources. These cosmologies differ in their
language and form but not in content, which is always the
assertion of the Unity of the Divine Principle, which is the
origin of the cosmos, the reality of the hierarchy of cosmic
and universal existence, and the interdependence and
interrelation of all orders of cosmic reality and various realms
of nature. These cosmologies may in fact be described as so
many versions of what one might call a cosmologia
perennis.17

Some of the earliest cosmological schemes in Islam are to be

found in circles that were involved in the study of

622
Pythagorean and Hermetic texts being translated into Arabic
from the second/eighth century on. A cosmology based on the
symbolism of numbers and the language of alchemy
and astrology is already to be found in the writings of the first
major Islamic alchemist, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, who lived in the
second/eighth century.18 This type of cosmology was often
combined with the symbolism of letters related to the science
of jafr, which is of purely Islamic origin inextricably related
to the Arabic language and the structure of the Quran itself.19
In such cosmological schemes, each letter or number signifies
a grade of being, a particular existent within the cosmic or
metacosmic hierarchy, while the cosmic dimensions of the
alchemical natures and qualities are brought out.

623
32. Traditional Islamic Cosmos.

Ismāʿīlī Cosmology

624
Early Ismāʿīlī cosmologies were closely related to the world
of the Jābirean corpus, while the Epistles of the Brethren of
Purity, which have a strong Pythagorean flavor,20 were also
related to the Shīʿite and, more particularly, Ismāʿīlī circles.
Early Ismāʿīlī writings as well as those of the Fāṭimid
period—such works as the Umm al-kitāb, the treatises of Abū
Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī and Nāṣir-i
Khusraw—contain elaborate cosmological discussions. In
such works, the number seven, which dominates over Ismāʿīlī
cosmological thought, is the basis of schemes that relate the
cycles of prophecy and Imamate, the cycles of cosmic
existence and the levels of the cosmos.21 A special feature of
these Ismāʿīlī cosmologies is their insistence upon the
transcendence of the Divine Principle not only beyond the
cosmos but also beyond Being Itself. The source of cosmic
existence in these works is not Pure Being but the
Beyond-Being whose first act is then identified with Being.22

Peripatetic Cosmology

Islamic Peripatetic (mashshāʾī) philosophy, developed by

al-Kindī and al-Fārābī and reaching its peak with Ibn Sīnā
(Avicenna), is based on ontology to the extent that Ibn Sīnā
has been called by some of his Western students the
“philosopher of being.” The cosmological schemes of this
school, elaborated most fully in Ibn Sīnā’s Kitāb al-shifāʾ
(Sufficientia), relate the levels of existence to the hierarchic
Ptolemaic cosmos and correlate each planetary orb with a
particular state of being in an ascending hierarchy. This
hierarchy passes beyond the visible cosmos to the Premium
mobile and the Divine Presence,23 much like medieval
European cosmologies, which often derived their schemes
from Islamic sources but which Christianized them.24 In the

625
case of Ibn Sīnā, angelology is inseparable from cosmology,
and angels play a central role in the cosmos described by Ibn
Sīnā. It is they who
preserve the order of the cosmos as well as act as agents
through which knowledge is imparted to man.25

Ibn Sīnā was also interested in the symbolism of letters and

numbers, and the more esoteric cosmology associated with
such esoteric sciences as al-jafr as can be seen in his Risālat
al-nayrūziyyah. Moreover, toward the end of his life, he
turned toward what he called “the Oriental philosophy”
(al-ḥikmat al-mashriqiyyah), in which cosmology became not
a theoretical scheme but a plan to enable the traveler upon the
path of spiritual perfection to journey through the cosmic
crypt, to be liberated from all limitation, and thereby to gain
spiritual freedom.26 This later cosmology of Ibn Sīnā is a
prelude to the cosmology that was to be expanded a century
and a half after Ibn Sīnā by Suhrawardī, the founder of the
School of Illumination (ishrāq).27 Ishrāqī cosmology is based
on the symbolism of light. The Supreme Principle is called by
Suhrawardī the “Light of lights” (nūr al-anwār), and there
issues from this transcendent source the longitudinal and
latitudinal hierarchies of light which govern every aspect of
cosmic existence. The cosmos itself consists, in fact, of
grades of light, and matter is nothing more than the absence
of light. Every light is but a faint glimmer of that Light which
as the Quran asserts is neither of the east nor the west and
which is the Light of the heavens and the earth according to
the Quranic verse, “God is the Light of the heavens and the
earth” (XXIV, 35).

Sufi Cosmology

626
Later Sufis also dealt extensively with cosmology, especially
Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ʿArabī, who integrated Hermetic,
Pythagorean, Neoplatonic, and Empedoclean elements into
doctrines drawn from the inner meaning of the Quran.28 In
his writings, the science of Divine Names and Qualities
(al-asmāʾ waʾl-ṣifāt) serves as the basis for an elaborate
science of the cosmos which reveals how all cosmic qualities
are reverberations of various Divine Names and Qualities and
how each level of cosmic existence is itself nothing but a
Divine Presence. There are essentially five Divine Presences
(al-ḥaḍarāt al-ilāhiyyat al-khams), ranging from the Divine
Essence (al-hāhūt), through the world of Names and Qualities
(al-lāhūt), the archangelic world (al-jabarūt), the lower
angelic and subtle worlds (al-malakūt), and the corporeal
world (al-mulk).29 Ibn ʿArabī depicts the levels of cosmic
reality in the light of the well-known doctrine of the
“transcendent unity of being” (waḥdat al-wujūd), according to
which there is ultimately but one Being, one Reality, all else
consisting of reflections of the Divine Names and Qualities
upon the mirror of nonexistence.

Many of the followers of the school of Ibn ʿArabī, such as

Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, and Sayyid
Ḥaydar Āmulī, have expanded further the cosmological
doctrines found in the numerous works of Ibn ʿArabī. Among
these followers Āmulī adds a new dimension to Ibn ʿArabī’s
cosmological teachings by integrating them into Shīʿite
gnosis. In the writings of Āmulī, who held special interest in
geometric schemes depicting levels of the cosmic reality,30
the Twelve Shīʿite Imams play an important cosmic role as
links between the Divine and the human order both
microcosmically and macrocosmically. In fact, in Shīʿite
cosmology of a gnostic and esoteric nature, not only is

627
cosmology inseparable from angelology but it is also
inseparable from imamology. The knowledge of the Imam in
both its soteriological and cosmological aspects is found in its
most developed and elaborate form in the writings of Ṣadr
al-Dīn Shīrāzī (Mullā Ṣadrā).31

The Spiritual Significance of Cosmology and Nature

The spiritual significance of all Islamic cosmologies is to

provide a knowledge of the cosmos so as to transform the
cosmic reality from opacity to transparancy, from a veil to the
means of unveiling the Divine Reality, which the cosmos
veils and unveils by its very nature. The goal is to provide a
map of the cosmic labyrinth so as to enable man to escape
from the prison of all limitative existence. The goal is to
reveal Unity (al-tawḥīd) as reflected in the world of
multiplicity and hence to aid man to realize Unity. In order to
realize God, some men may be able to fly directly to the
Divine Empyrean without concern for the cosmic reality that
surrounds them. But Islamic spirituality provides the means
for those human beings whose inner nature is such that they
must read the pages of the cosmic book before being able to
put this book away and experience the moment described in
the Quran as follows: “On the day when We shall roll up
heaven as a scroll is rolled for the writings” (XXI, 104).

The role of the natural order and the sciences related to it are,
however, not limited to the intellectual significance of the
cosmological sciences. Nature is also the foretaste of the
beatitude of the Islamic paradise. The Quranic description of
paradise includes animals and plants, and there are those
Muslim sages such as Mullā Ṣadrā who have spoken of the
resurrection of all of creation at the Day of Judgment. The

628
Muslim contemplative experiences in the bosom of nature
something of the delights of paradise and sees in the beauty of
nature, in the majestic mountains that uphold the earth, in the
stars that adorn the heavens, and in the seas that hide the
treasures of creation in their infinite expanse, reflections of
the Face of the Beloved. The experience of virgin nature is
related to that beatific vision whose subject transcends all that
is created. Islamic spirituality brings into being that
“creation-consciousness” which enables man to see in nature
the theophany of the Divine Names and Qualities and to hear
in the flight of the bird soaring toward heaven the prayer of
creation to the Divine Throne, for, as the Quran asserts,
“Seest thou not that it is God whom all things in the heavens
and earth praise—and the birds in flight outstretched? Each
knoweth its [mode of] prayer and praise to Him, and God is
aware of all that they do” (XXIV, 41).

Notes

1. Traditional Islamic commentaries refer to the Quran

revealed in Arabic as tadwīnī, that is, put together as a book,
and to the cosmos as takwīnī, that is, as the book of existence
itself. The eighth/fourteenth-century Sufi ʿAzīz al-Dīn Nasafī
writes concerning the book of nature, “Each day destiny and
the passage of time set this book before you, sūrah for sūrah,
verse for verse, letter for letter, and read it to you . . . like one
who sets a real book before you and reads it to you line for
line, letter for letter, that you may learn the content of these
lines and letters”; see his Kashf al-ḥaqaʾ iq, trans. F. Meier in
“The Problem of Nature in the Esoteric Monism of Islam,” in
Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, trans.
R. Manheim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1954) 203.

629
2. These are the people to whom the Quran refers as ūluʾ
l-abṣār, the “possessors of vision.”

3. “The Quran and the great phenomena of nature are twin

manifestations of the divine act of Self-revelation. For Islam,
the natural world in its totality is a vast fabric into which the
‘signs’ of the Creator are woven. It is significant that the word
meaning ‘signs’ or ‘symbols’, āyāt, is the same word that is
used for the ‘verses’ of the Quran. Earth and sky, mountains
and stars, oceans and forests and the creatures they contain
are, as it were, ‘verses’ of a sacred book. ‘Indeed Allah
disdaineth not to coin the similitude of a gnat or of something
even smaller than that’ (Q.2.26). Creation is one, and He who
created the Quran is also He who created all the visible
phenomena of nature. Both are the communications from God
to man” (G. Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man [Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1985] 87.

4. One of the titles of the Prophet of Islam is al-nabī al-ummī,

the unlettered Prophet, since the Prophet was unlettered in the
sense that his soul remained pure and untainted with human
knowledge so as to be worthy of being the recipient of the
Divine Word. We do not mean that only the Islamic
Revelation makes possible the reading of the cosmic text, but
Revelation in general, of which Islam is the last and final
synthesis.

5. We have dealt extensively with this theme in several

writings, including An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological
Doctrines (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978); Science and
Civilization in Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1964); Islamic Life and Thought (Albany, NY: State

630
University of New York Press, 1981) chap. 19; and Man and
Nature (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975).

6. See Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man, 91.

7. On this doctrine, see T. Burckhardt, An Introduction to Sufi

Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1959)
chap. 9.

8. Wa fī kulli shayʾ in lahū āyatun tadullu ʿalā annahu

wāḥidun.

9. See the introduction of Nasr, Science and Civilization; also

idem, Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (London: World
of Islam Festival Trust, 1976) part 1.

10. See Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man, 91.

11. As already mentioned, at the heart of the canonical

prayers stands the Sūrat al-fāṭiḥah, in which man addresses
God in these terms: iyyāka naʿbudu wa iyyāka nastaʿīn (“Thee
only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succour”).

12. See S. H. Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality (Albany, NY:

State University of New York Press, 1987) chap. 3.

13. See T. Burckhardt, The Mirror of the Intellect, ed. W.

Stoddart (Cambridge: Quintessential Books, 1987).

14. On Islamic cosmology, see S. H. Nasr, Islamic

Cosmological Doctrines; idem, “Philosophy and
Cosmology,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol.4, ed. R.
N. Frye (Cambridge: University Press, 1975) 419–41.

631
15. The āyat al-kursī is as follows: “God—there is no god but
He, the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not,
neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the
earth. Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His
leave? He knows what lies before them and what is after
them, and they comprehend not anything of His knowledge
save such as He wills. His Throne comprises the heavens and
earth; the preserving of them oppresses Him not; He is the
All-high, the All-glorious” (II, 255). As for the āyat al-nūr, it
asserts, “God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the
like of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp (the lamp in a
glass, the glass as it were a glittering star) kindled from a
Blessed Tree, an olive that is neither of the East nor of the
West whose oil well nigh would shine, even if no fire touched
it; Light upon Light; God guides to His Light whom He will.
And God strikes similitudes for men, and God has knowledge
of everything” (XXIV, 35).

16. Of special significance is the series of ḥadīths dealing

with the veils of light and darkness and the hierarchy of
angels. See F. Schuon, Dimensions of Islam, trans. P.
Townsend (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970) chap. 8,
“An-Nūr,” and chapter 17 in this volume.

17. The goal of Islamic cosmology was shared by other

traditional cosmologies and sciences, without which Islam
would not have integrated some of these cosmologies and
cosmological sciences into its intellectual world. That is why
one can speak of a cosmologia perennis as one can speak of a
philosophia perennis. See T. Burckhardt, “Cosmology and
Modern Science,” in The Sword of Gnosis, ed. J. Needleman
(Boston, MA: Arkana Paperbacks, 1986) 102ff.; and Nasr,
“The Role of the Traditional Sciences in the Encounter of

632
Religion and Science—An Oriental Perspective,” Religious
Studies 20 (1984) 519–41.

18. There are numerous cosmological treatises in the Jābirean

corpus, and whether they are all by him or his school is not of
consequence here. On the name of these treatises, see P.
Kraus, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, Contribution à l’historie des idées
scientifiques dans l’Islam (2 vols.; Cairo: Institut français
d’archéologie orientale, 1942–43); and H. Corbin “Le Livre
du Glorieux de Jābir ibn Ḥayyān,” Eranos Jahrbuch (Ascona)
18 (1950) 47–114.

19. See the study of J. Canteins, “The Significance of the

Hidden Sciences” in volume 20 this Encyclopedia.

20. On their emphasis upon numerical symbolism and

Pythagorean number, see
Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, 47ff., 209–11.

21. On Ismāʿīlī cosmology, see H. Corbin (with the

collaboration of S. H. Nasr and O. Yahya), Histoire de la
philosophie islamique (Paris: Gallimard, 1964); Corbin,
Cyclical Time and Ismāʿīlī Gnosis (London: Kegan Paul
International, 1983) and chap. 10 of this volume.

22. See W. Madelung, “Aspects of Ismāʿīlī Theology: The

Prophetic Chain and the God Beyond Being,” in Ismāʿīlī
Contributions to Islamic Culture, ed. S. H. Nasr (Tehran:
Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977) 51–65.

23. See Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, chap. 12.

633
24. Perhaps the foremost example is the Divine Comedy,
which uses a cosmological scheme and the idea of journeying
through the cosmos, drawn from Islamic sources, but
integrates it into a completely Christian perspective. See M.
Asín Palacios, La escatologia musulmana en la Divina
Comedia (Madrid: Hiperion, 1984); and E. Cerulli, Il ‘Libro
della Scala’ e la questione delle fonte arabo-spagnole della
Divina Commedia (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica
vaticana, 1949).

25. On this angelology in relation to cosmology, see H.

Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. W. Trask
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1960).

26. See Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, chap. 15.

27. On Suhrawardī and his cosmology, see S. H. Nasr, Three

Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardī, Ibn ʿArabī
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964) chap. 2;
H. Corbin, En Islam iranien (4 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1970)
vol. 2.

28. On Ibn ʿArabī and his cosmological teachings, see T.

Burckhardt, Mystical Astrology according to Ibn ʿArabī
(London: Beshara Publications, 1982); Ibn ʿArabī, Shajarat
al-kawn, trans, with notes by A. Jeffery, Studia Islamica, 10
(1959) 43–77; and 11 (1960) 113–60; Ibn ʿArabi, L’Alchimie
du bonheur, trans. S. Ruspoli (Paris: Berg International,
1981); and W. Chittick, “Ibn ʿArabī and His School,” chapter
4 of volume 20 of this Encyclopedia.

29. On the five Divine Presences, see F. Schuon, Dimensions

of Islam, chap. 11.

634
30. The malakūt mentioned by Ibn ʿArabī also corresponds to
the imaginal world—the world of “hanging forms” (al-ṣuwar
al-muʿallaqah), where forms exist without matter, in the
Aristotelian sense of the term. This intermediate imaginal
world, not to be confused with imagination as understood in
the ordinary sense, plays an important role in not only
cosmology but also epistemology, eschatology, and the
Islamic theory of art. See H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in
the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. R. Manheim (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1969); and Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī,
La Philosophie shiʿite (Tehran and Paris:
Andrien-Maisonneuve, 1969).

31. Such as his Asfār and Asrār al-āyāt. On Mullā Ṣadrā, see
H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, vol. 4, chap. 2; S. H. Nasr, Ṣadr
al-Dīn Shīrāzī and His Transcendent Theosophy (Tehran:
Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978); Nasr, “Ṣadr
al-Dīn Shīrāzī,” in M. M. Sharif, A History of Muslim
Philosophy, vol. 2 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966) 932–61;
and F. Rahman, The Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 1976).

635
636
 19

Man

CHARLES LE GAI EATON

THE CONTEMPORARY MIND LOOKS for consistency

both in ideologies and in any general system of concepts.
Consistency may well be seen as the test of their validity. We
may not agree with the Marxist view of man or the Freudian
view, but we acknowledge that each system has its own
internal logic even though we may not accept the assumptions
upon which the system is constructed. This expectation must
be put aside when we approach the Islamic view of man. Here
we are dealing not with a consistent pattern of concepts
devised by the human mind functioning within its own
limitations but with the paradoxes and ambiguities inherent in
the created world and in the shattered reflections, perceived
here and now, of what lies beyond creation and infinitely
transcends it. We can no longer insist that man must be either
this or that. We are obliged to admit that he may be both this
and that.

Man as God’s Vicegerent and Slave

Islam sees man as the vicegerency of God on earth and the

projection, as it were, of the vertical dimension onto the
horizontal plane. Gifted with intelligence in the true sense of
the term, he alone of all creatures is capable of knowing the
Reality of which he himself is a manifestation and, in the light

637
of this knowledge, of rising above his own earthly and
contingent selfhood. Gifted with the power of speech, he
alone stands before God as His valid interlocutor. Through
Revelation as also through inspiration God speaks to His
creation; through prayer as also through an awareness which
is a silent form of communication man speaks to God and
does so on behalf of the inarticulate creation that surrounds
him. He is, potentially if not actually, higher than the angels,
for his nature reflects totality and can be satisfied with
nothing less than the Total. It is a synthesis from which no
element, from the highest to the lowest, is excluded, and it is
a mirror in
which are reflected the Names and Attributes of the God
before Whom he stands upright, now and forever.

This is one side of the human coin. A simple change of

perspective shows the other, and Islam sees man as a creature
of dust or clay, a nothingness before the overwhelming
splendor of the Real—impotent before Omnipotence, a little
thing (brother to the ant) who walks briefly upon the earth
from which he was molded, vulnerable to a pinprick and
destined soon to be seized upon and taken to Judgment. He is
a slave whose highest achievement is to obey without
question his Master’s Will or (in more esoteric terms) to rid
himself of everything that might appear to be “his,” so that
the Divine Will may operate through him without
impediment. Any good that he may do comes from elsewhere.
He can take no credit for it since it did not originate with him.
Only the evil that he does is his to claim and possess as his
own. Knowledge and virtue, if they are reflected in his being,
are a loan from his Creator. So too are the senses, through
which he perceives the theater of his experience but which
may be taken from him at any moment.

638
We have here the positive and negative poles of human
existence or human identity according to the Islamic view of
our situation. They might appear irreconcilable, but, for the
Muslim, they represent the concrete reality of this situation
and they interpenetrate each other much as do the positive and
the negative, the light and the dark, in the Chinese yin-yang
figure. Mastery—that is to say, the quality of vicegerency—is
intimately linked to “slavehood,” and “slavehood” as such is
neither more nor less than the excellence of a clear mirror that
reflects the higher realities and could not reflect them if it
were less than clear. According to the mystic and theologian
al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111), everything including the human
creature has “a face of its own and a face of its Lord; in
respect of its own face it is nothingness, and in respect of the
face of its Lord it is Being.” This image suggests a further
dimension: the creature who in this fashion faces two
different ways is, in consequence, a meeting-point, a bridge.
The human heart, which Islam identifies as the seat of
knowledge rather than the seat of emotion,1 is sometimes
described as the barzakh (“isthmus”), which both separates
and unites the “two seas,” the divine and the earthly. It is
precisely on account of this function that man can be defined
as khalīfat Allāh fiʾl-arḍ, the vicegerent of God on earth.

Adam and Eve, the Prototypes of Humanity

The prototype of this identity as vicegerent is man as he first

issued from the hand of God—Adam, primordial man. The
Quran states:

God spoke to the angels in that time (the time beyond time), saying: Indeed I
shall place on earth a vicegerent. They asked: Wilt Thou place upon it one
who will make mischief therein and shed blood? While, as for us, we
celebrate Thy glory and extol Thy holiness. Their Lord answered: Truly I

639
know what ye know not! Thereupon He taught Adam the names of all things,
then placed them before the angels, saying: Tell me the names of these if ye
are truthful. They said: Glorified art Thou! No knowledge have we save that
which Thou hast taught us. Thou indeed art the Omniscient, the Wise. He
said: O Adam! Inform them of the names of these things. And when (Adam)
had informed them of the names, He said: Did I not tell you that I know the
secrets of the heavens and the earth, and I know what you show and what you
hide? (II, 30–33)

The angels were then commanded to prostrate themselves

before this new creation, man, and they did so, all save Iblis,
the satanic power or spirit of rebellion, who refused out of
blind pride to humble himself before a creature whose glory is
masked by dust.

The chroniclers, relying sometimes upon what the Prophet

himself said concerning these matters and sometimes upon
inspired imagination, have filled out this brief narrative in
rich detail. According to the fourth/eleventh century
commentator al-Kisāʾī, the archangel Gabriel was
commanded to assemble the angel ranks before Adam, who
then spoke to all the inhabitants of the heavens, who stood in
twenty thousand rows around him. A pulpit was set up for
him and he was clad in robes of honor with a golden crown
on his head, jewel-encrusted and having four corner points
each set with a pearl whose brightness would have put out the
light of sun and moon (being transparent to the Divine Light,
which eclipses all other lights). When he held up before them
the rod of light which God had given him, the angelic hosts
stood in awe of him, saying of him: “O our Lord, hast Thou
created any creature superior to this?” Then he addressed the
celestial assembly with the authority that his Creator had
delegated to him, and when he came down from the pulpit his
radiance was even greater than it had been before.

640
His radiance, so al-Kisāʾī tells us, was not unique, for God
created for him a mate, equal “in splendour and in beauty,”
Ḥawwāʾ (Eve), so called because she was created out of Life
(ḥayy) itself. She was of the same form as Adam except that
her skin was more tender, her coloring lighter, her voice
sweeter, her eyes wider and darker, and her teeth whiter. “O
Lord, for whom has Thou created her?” asked Adam. “For
him who will take her in faithfulness and be joined with her in
thankfulness!” And their Lord, Who Himself performed the
marriage ceremony between them, added: “This is My
handmaiden, and thou art My servant, O Adam! Nothing is
dearer to Me in all My creation than ye twain, so long as ye
obey Me.” “Glory to Him
who created the pair” says the Quran (XXXVI, 36), and
Muḥammad told his companions that “marriage is half the
religion.”

Then, according to the same author, a magnificent steed,

saddled with a saddle of emerald and chrysolite and bridled
with a bridle of jacinth, was brought to Adam, a winged steed
which, when its rider had praised God, told him, “You have
spoken well, Adam, for none may ride me save one who is
thankful.” For Eve, there was a superb she-camel as mount.
The incomparable pair then made their way to the garden
created for them, with angels to the right and to the left,
before and behind, and others of the angelic host lining the
route. God addressed Adam, saying: “Now remember My
favors to you, for I have made you the masterpiece of My
creation, fashioned you a man according to My will, breathed
into you of My spirit, made My angels do obeisance to you
and carry you on their shoulders, made you a preacher to
them, loosened your tongue to all languages. . . . All this I
have done for you as glory and honor, so beware of Iblis

641
whom I have made to despair. . . .”2 But this warning was
ignored or forgotten when Iblis, the agent of division and
separation, tempted the celestial pair with the glamor and
glitter of relativity and a spurious independence. So began a
process that leads from that time to the present day. It must be
noted, however, that they “fell” together, equal in guilt as
they had been equal in glory. Eve was no temptress so far as
the Islamic tradition is concerned. And although they were
exiled, as are all who live upon this earth, yet they were
promised by Him Who is named the Ever-Forgiving, the
All-Forgiving, the Effacer of sins, that their posterity would
never be left without guidance through the dark alleyways of
the lower world. This “guidance,” according to Islam,
culminated and was completed in the coming of Muḥammad,
who, as it were, closes the circle.

The Prophet as the Perfect Human Model

Although such myths and legends as that of al-Kisāʾī are rich

in meaning and symbolism and cannot be regarded merely as
human inventions, the fact remains that “Adam,” in whatever
manner we may understand this name, is remote from the
practical life in which men and women need to find their
direction and orientation. There is, however, a prototype of
human perfection (in small matters as in great) very close to
the pious Muslim, closer to him—so the Quran tells us—than
his own selfhood. Since Muḥammad is also, by definition,
close to God, it follows that he provides not only guidance but
also a human—viceregal—link between the Divine and the
earthly. A man or a woman qualifies as a Muslim when he or
she makes, in good faith, the dual profession or witnessing,
first to the Divine

642
Unity and then to the messengerhood of Muḥammad. If this
second truth were not joined to the first, there would be an
impassible barrier between what is above (Divine Reality)
and what is below (the creature of earthly dust). For the
ordinary believer, the entirely exoteric Muslim, this suffices.
It is enough that the Creator should have commissioned His
chosen messenger Muḥammad (having commissioned many
others before him) to bring mankind guidance and the Law,
together with the promise of paradise and the threat of
hellfire. For the esoterists—that is to say, for the Sufis—the
function of providing a link between God and man, heaven
and earth, is reflected—at least as a virtuality—in every
human creature, provided he models himself, inwardly as well
as outwardly, upon the model provided. “In the messenger of
God,” says the Quran, “you have a good example (uswatun
ḥasanatun)” (XXXIII, 21). Addressing His messenger directly
in the chapter of The Pen, God says: “Thou art truly of a
tremendous nature” (LXVIII, 4). Questioned concerning her
husband, ʿĀʾishah said: “His nature is the nature of the
Quran”; in other words, he was not only the messenger but
also the embodiment of the message.

It follows that the key to the Muslim view of man is to be

found in the person of the Prophet of Islam. He has many
titles of glory, but the first, which even precedes the
designation “messenger” in the confession of faith, is “slave”
or “servant” (ʿabd). For the Muslim, this attribute of
“slavehood” always comes first, whatever else may follow,
for reasons that will be clear from what was said earlier.
Thus, the adherent of Islam is a Muslim (“one who submits”)
rather than a muʾmin (“one who believes”). Just as the quality
of obedient passivity is a precondition of the Messenger’s
activity in the world, so this quality determines the ordinary

643
human creature’s fitness to fulfill the function for which he
was created. It is the starting point or springboard without
which there can be no journeying and certainly no
viceregality. The human will is perfected only when it reflects
the Divine Will. Closely related to this is the title al-nabī
al-ummī, the “unlettered Prophet,” and it is precisely this title
that guarantees the authenticity of the Scripture, the Quran,
since a divine messenger can only convey the message
accurately if he adds nothing to it in terms of human
knowledge. The Muslim as such receives the message at
second hand, but he too is required to receive it—through the
Quran—without permitting his receptivity to be distorted by
any trace of profane knowledge or by his personal likes and
dislikes.

But the perfect scribe, who misses no syllable of what is

dictated to him and who is, so to speak, all ear, is also ḥabīb
Allāh (the beloved of God), just as Adam was “most dear to
God.” With this image the whole picture changes, and the
relationship between Creator and creation is seen from a
different
perspective. It is said that the Arabic word for man, insān, is
derived from the root uns, which has the meaning “intimacy,”
and the poets and mystics of Islam moved swiftly from the
Master/slave image to that of Lover/beloved, a relationship of
mutuality. According to a holy tradition (ḥadīth qudsī), “I was
a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known; therefore I
created Man” (or, according to a different version, “the
worlds”). Many exoteric Muslims question the authenticity of
this saying because they take it to imply that God “needs”
something outside Himself, and to ascribe “needs” to God is,
in Muslim terms, close to blasphemy. It is true that the
Andalusian mystic Ibn ʿArabī, whose influence upon the

644
metaphysical doctrines of Sufism can hardly be exaggerated,
did at times write as though there were, at the very heart of
the Divine, a yearning for a relationship of mutuality. H.
Corbin has analyzed this perspective with great subtlety, but
to interpret “need” in human terms is to miss the point.3
Reality, which is also by definition absolute Perfection, can
have only one obligation, the obligation to be Itself. This
implies a plenitude which, by its very nature, “radiates” or
“overflows” outward or—to use a more human
image—desires to give Itself. This does not imply any lack in
the Divine Perfection but, on the contrary, refers to a
particular dimension of this Perfection, except for which the
existence of anything outside or—though only in
appearance—separated from the Absolute would be
incomprehensible.

This doctrine, whatever suspicions it may arouse in the minds

of certain Muslims jealous to preserve the utter transcendence
of a God in relation to Whom blind obedience is the only
possible human response, assists us nonetheless in defining
the Islamic view of man’s role and therefore in understanding
the concept of “slavehood.” The predestined receptacle of the
“overflowing” of the Divine Plenitude is necessarily passive
and necessarily empty of all other contents. In this context
humility is no longer a moral or sentimental concept, but
neither more nor less than the most favorable existential
attitude for anyone who wishes to receive what is given.

In the Islamic view the role of the Messenger of God—the

role of Muḥammad—is both to be the perfect receptacle and
to provide a model of perfect receptivity. But the imitation of
the Prophet in Islam has a very different character from the
purely spiritual “imitation of Christ” to which the pious

645
Christian aspires. The fact that Muḥammad, unlike Jesus, was
destined to live through all the major experiences to which a
human being may be exposed in the course of his life gives
the practice of the religion its specific character and lends to
this “imitation” a remarkable precision, even in the simplest
acts of daily life. Faced with some common human problem,
the Christian will seek in his own heart to discover what Jesus
might have
done; the Muslim, more often than not, knows what
Muḥammad did.

During his formative years, he had run through the gamut of

youthful experience; orphaned very early in life yet sheltered
by the love and care first of his grandfather and then of an
uncle, born a townsman yet passing a part of his childhood
with a Bedouin family in the desert, traveling in adolescence
with the great trading caravan to Syria, rubbing shoulders
with the extraordinary variety of people drawn to Mecca by
its wealth. He had been a merchant, with all that this implies
in the way of practical experience and of assessing the
honesty of those with whom one must deal; he had married a
widow considerably older than himself and had given an
example of faithful and devoted monogamous marriage, later
(after her death) to give a complementary example of justice
and kindness as the husband of a number of wives; he had
experienced the joy of fatherhood and the sadness of seeing
all but one of his children die before him; he had suffered
bitter persecution, which he faced with exemplary patience;
and he had suffered, above all, the shattering impact of the
encounter with Divine Reality.

Fully formed and now a master of men, he completed his

mission during the Medina years as the ruler of a sacred

646
community—a city-state dedicated to the worship of the One
God—and as the guide, counselor, and friend of that
community. During those final ten years he organized no
fewer than seventy-four campaigns, leading twenty-four of
them himself. Yet the record of those years in the ḥadīth
literature pays less attention to such public events than to his
relationship to the people around him, people who turned to
him for counsel and comfort in every conceivable human
situation while observing his every action and recording for
posterity the details, great and small, which have provided the
Muslims throughout the ages with the concrete model for
their living and their dying. In all this they have been made
aware of a particular element in the human situation, which is
decisive in determining this situation as Islam understands it.
Passivity toward what is above us—“slavehood” in other
words—has its complement in activity and initiative here
where we find ourselves, in this world and in that part of
ourselves that belongs to this world. This is jihād, a word that
means “effort” or “struggle,” but is commonly translated as
“holy war.” The viceroy of God on earth cannot be idle; it is
his function to rectify what is amiss both in the world around
him and within himself. This obligation is in proportion to his
receptivity.

The imitation of the Prophet, however, can take different

forms, as can the “holy war,” which may, on occasion, be
directed against the enemies of the Faith and of the Good, but
which may equally be directed against those elements within
ourselves which are the root of all the evils that appear
outwardly in the theater of this world. It is in the nature of
religion, since it
engages the whole personality, to run to certain excesses
when enthusiasm destroys the sense of proportion and zeal

647
overcomes judgment. There are Muslims whose desire to
imitate every action and every gesture of the Prophet exceeds
the bounds of what is universally applicable, so that the sheer
weight of outward observance smothers inwardness and leads
almost inevitably to hypocrisy. Meticulous outward imitation
is one vocation among others and is justified as a spiritual
method insofar as—and only insofar as—it engenders
corresponding inward attitudes, attitudes that might simply be
defined as “virtues” in the deepest sense of the term. Through
playing a part—in this case, the “part” played by the Prophet
in his outward behavior—the ultimate intention is that the
personality as such should enter into the mold provided by his
personality.

Others whose aim it is to follow the “perfect example”

may—particularly under the conditions of modern life, which
make it, to say the least, difficult to live exactly as though one
were a member of Muḥammad’s community in Medina in the
seventh century of the Christian era—seek their exemplar in
his inward nature, going to the source of his actions and
striving to imitate the virtues that found expression in all that
he did and said. If we bear in mind that his nature was “the
nature of the Quran,” it can be seen that to enter into the mold
of the Prophet’s personality is, in effect, to enter into the mold
of the Quran. It might, indeed, be permissible to describe the
Prophet of Islam as “the Quran in action or in application,”
and, by derivation, the same might be said of the Muslim who
is all that he should be and who, as such, incorporates in his
own person the Islamic concept of man.

The Muslim who aspires to such excellence is greatly assisted

by the wealth and extent of the Ḥadīth record and by the fact
that this record includes so much that might be considered

648
“trivial” but for the fact that it relates to a manifestation of the
Sacred and conceals beneath a seemingly commonplace
surface indications of momentous significance. It is not only
in grave matters or in promulgating the ordinances of the
community that Muḥammad demonstrated his innermost
nature but also in his dealings with his family, with his
friends, and with those who sought his advice on the minor
aspects of everyday life. This relates to what may be
described as the totality of his mission, which was destined
and required to penetrate every level of human experience and
to bring the light of an all-encompassing guidance even into
the darkest corner, the smallest crevice, of life in this world.
The Muslim does not only learn his religion, his duties, and
his rules of conduct from the Ḥadīth literature; he learns from
it what it is to be human as Islam understands the human role,
and he drinks from it, as though from a great pool, the water
of perfection, the perfection of vicegerency.

Adam, Muḥammad, and the View of Man

The Islamic view of man may best be defined and

exemplified in relation to these two poles, Adam and
Muḥammad, the first prophet and the last, the beginning of
the story and the end of it. To lay stress upon the “closing of
the circle” represented by Muḥammad’s mission is to stress
also the primordial nature of this mission. History had
unfolded and humanity had pursued its predestined course.
There had to be—and there was—a return to the origin,
insofar as such a return might be possible at so late a stage in
the cycle. Islam justifies itself as the dīn al-fiṭrah, which
might be translated as “the religion of primordiality” or even
as “the original religion.”4 The perfect Muslim is not a man
of his time or indeed of any other specific historic time. He is

649
man as he issued from the hand of God. “You are all the
children of Adam” (or “the tribe of Adam”) as Muḥammad
told his people.

In relation to man as such, the word fiṭrah may be taken to

refer to the human norm from which, according to the Quran,
humanity has fallen away.5 But the word is derived from a
verb meaning “he created” or “he cleft asunder” (the act of
creation being described as a cleaving asunder of the heavens
and the earth)—hence, its reference back to the origins. It
follows that the image of human perfection (or, quite simply,
of human normality) lies in the past, not in the future, and the
way to its attainment lies not in an aspiration focused on a
distant goal or in any miraculous redemption from inherent
sinfulness but rather through the removal of accretions and
distortions that have both corroded and twisted a perfection
that is, in essence, natural to mankind. It is a question not of
leaping over the world or of being rescued from it but of
retracing, in an upward direction, the downward slope of
time.

We have here a sharp contrast to the Christian view, which

posits a primordial corruption of the innermost core of the
human creature. For Islam this core remains sound and cannot
be otherwise. Neither time nor circumstance can totally
destroy what God has made, but time and circumstance can
cover it with layer upon layer of darkness. This offers a clue
to the deeper meaning of the term kāfir, usually translated as
“infidel,” “unbeliever,” or “denier of the truth.” The word
kafara means “he covered,” in the way that the farmer covers
seed he has sown. In fallen man—man at the bottom of the
slope—there has taken place a covering of the Divine “spark”
within and, as a direct result of this, he himself covers (and so

650
ignores or denies) the Truth, which has been revealed with
dazzling clarity and which is, at the same time, inherent in the
hidden “spark.” Islam envisages this man as imprisoned in a
cell the walls of which he reinforces by his own
misguided efforts, the cell of the ego, which sets itself up as a
little god and isolates itself from the stream of Divine Mercy
which flows at its doorstep. The guidance provided by the
Messenger of God offers him the opportunity, if he will take
it, to come out into the open, the sunlight, which is his natural
environment. The command inherent in this message is: Be
what in truth you are! From this point of view it may be
said—and has often been said although seldom with full
understanding—that the Islamic concept of man is “static.”
All is here and now, neither distant nor in another time.

651
33. The Black Stone, a meteor placed at the side of the
Ka‘bah and revered as a symbol of the original covenant
between man and God.

In referring to a return to the origins and a remounting of the

stream of time, we are brought back to the Quranic story of
the creation of Adam and to the legends that surround it. The

652
Quran cannot be said to take a flattering view of human
nature, and the first man wasted little time in giving way to
temptation. One may reasonably assume that God knew better
than did the angels what mischief this creature would do, and
it does not seem fanciful to read into the text the implication
that his stature, his vicegerency, was not unconnected with his
capacity for mischief making. In the realm of relativity
(which is, of necessity, foreign to the angels), light and
darkness, good and evil, are inextricably mixed together. The
angels cannot deviate from their Creator’s Will, and yet they
were commanded to bow down before this creature so prone
to rebellion. One is led inevitably to ask what could be the
secret of his manifest superiority. The answer relates, in the
first place, to the concept of totality, which is in itself
ambiguous.

Man as a Central Being

The concept of totality is ambiguous because, when it

disintegrates as it does in the nature of fallen man, we find, in
place of unity and good order, a chaos of mutually conflicting
forces and characteristics. If, as Islam asserts, the human heart
reflects the Names and Attributes of God, then this little
vessel of clay must break into many pieces unless held
together by Him Who has chosen it as His mirror. This is why
the kāfir is, by definition, a shattered creature, at war with
himself even as he is at war with his God, his Origin and his
Source. He has severed, at least in the context of relativity, his
link with the Reality upon which his own being and his
function depend. He has, in the precise sense of this common
term, “gone to pieces”; and as a direct consequence—since
man is its linchpin—the world “goes to pieces.” To
understand why this should be so we have to grasp one of the

653
most fundamental and universal concepts known to
humankind, shared by the Chinese tradition and by African
tribal religion as also by Islam and other major
traditions—the concept of man’s centrality. If, for
convenience, we envisage the earth as a flat disk, then the
thread that holds it in place
and connects it with all that is above and beyond passes
through its center. In terms of this image, this doctrine, man is
the aperture at the center. He alone of all created beings and
things is situated directly beneath the Divine Axis. It is for
this reason and only for this reason that he can be said to
reflect Totality in the mirror of his innermost heart, and it is
for this reason and only for this reason that he qualifies as the
viceroy of God on earth and, according to a ḥadīth, “Allah
and His angels, together with the inhabitants of the heavens
and the earth—even the ant in its hole, even the fish—invoke
blessings upon whomsoever teaches what is good.”

For “aperture” we might substitute the word “window.” “The

house without a window,” says Rūmī, “is hell,” and he adds
that “the function of religion is to make a window.”6
According to Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din, “If the earth be likened
to a windowless house, then man is the watch-tower in the
house, and the Eye of the Heart is as a single window in that
watch-tower to which all the dwellers in the house look up for
their light. Without this Eye man ceases to fulfil his essential
function, having fallen from his true nature; but with this Eye
he is the sole earthly receptacle of the spiritual light of which
he is the dispenser among his fellow creatures. . . .”7 From
this point of view the kāfir (who “covers” the Truth, the
Light, even from himself) might be defined as one who pulls
down a curtain over the window and plunges the whole house
into darkness.

654
The notion of man’s centrality does not refer only to his
existential situation; it refers also to the knowledge that is
contained, at least in virtuality, in his heart. “He [God] taught
Adam the names,” so the Quran tells us. This might be
defined as universal or all-encompassing knowledge, for the
name of anything defines its identity and is intimately linked
to the creative act of God. By “naming” it He brings it out of
“nonexistence” into the light of day; He causes it to be
knowable. The gift of knowledge, the
privilege—precisely—which gave Adam his superiority over
the angels, may be said to follow logically from the assertion
that man’s heart reflects Totality. But it follows also that the
knower of the “names” knows also the “Namer” of all things
or is capable of knowing Him. In the Islamic view, and
particularly in the view of the Sufis, the human creature is
capable of knowing the Creator, capable of hearkening to
God’s words and speaking to Him. The being who stands at
the center point of relativity is potentially able to know the
Absolute. Islam is “the religion of Law.” It is also “the
religion of knowledge,” and the duty to acquire knowledge is
a recurrent theme in the sayings of Muḥammad, as it is in the
Quran. Since the summit of knowledge is the knowledge of
God, the Quran identifies man’s highest duty in terms of
“seeking the Face of his Lord.”

Islam, however, does not demand of mankind that they should

observe
a duty to which they have not assented, and this assent is
identified with what is known as the Day of “Alast.” “And
when thy Lord brought forth from the children of Adam, from
their loins, their posterity [He] caused them to testify
concerning themselves [saying]: Am I not your Lord (alastu
bi-rabbikum)? They said: Yea, truly, we testify!” (VII, 172).

655
The passage concludes by explaining that we are told this
“lest you should claim on the Day of Resurrection that you
were unaware of it. . . .” We have, in other words, assented to
this commitment and this acknowledgement before ever our
conscious life began. The same implication is apparent in
another Quranic passage, which may be said to emphasize
man’s viceregal function. “We offered the Trust (amānah) to
the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they drew
back from bearing it and feared to do so. It is Man who bore
it. . .” (XXXIII, 72). The reference to “the mountains” is
illuminated by the following: “Had We caused this Quran to
descend upon a mountain, thou wouldst indeed have seen it
humbled and cleft asunder from fear. . .” (LIX, 21).
Revelation, knowledge, vicegerency, centrality: all these are
aspects of the burden that the human creature freely bears,
and it is in terms of this burden that he is defined as truly
“human.” It is also in terms of this burden that the kāfir is
seen by Islam as less than human.8 The supreme Trust was
given to the open-eyed creature, capable of choice and, for
that very reason, capable of betraying the Trust. If he does so,
what then is left of him but the dust from which he was
made?

Islam and the Primordial Religion

The term dīn al-fiṭrah (“primordial religion”) mentioned

earlier has an alternative translation more familiar to those in
the modern world who seek a universal faith beyond all
confessional divergencies. The dīn al-fiṭrah, since it refers
back to a time before the different “religions” were revealed
or crystallized, is the “perennial philosophy” which is to be
found behind the veil of every authentic religion (and is itself
the guarantee of authenticity) and also in the background of

656
the mythological religions of so-called primitive peoples.
Islam, however, claims by implication a particularly direct
relationship to this “perennial philosophy,” since it defines
itself as the final revelation of a timeless message of which
mankind has been “reminded” again and again by countless
“messengers of God.” The Quran acknowledges without
ambiguity that the laws and practices of the different
crystallizations of the dīn al-fiṭrah have differed according to
time and place,9 but the truth of the Divine Unity and the
decisive principles that are derived from this do not change,
have not changed, and can never change. “The
doctrine of Unity is unique” (al-tawḥīdu wāḥid), so it is said.
All else is illusion.

The connection between the “primordial religion” and the

final one is underlined by the absence of any priesthood in
Islam. The ʿulamāʾ—that is to say, the men learned in
religious matters (and particularly in the minutiae of the
Law)—may at times appear to occupy the role of “clergy” in
other faiths, but such authority as they may possess depends
upon the respect of the community, a respect that must be
earned. They have an advisory function but cannot act as
intermediaries between the worshiper and the Object of his
worship. It follows that each Muslim is, from this point of
view, his own “priest,” as is already apparent from the fact
that any Muslim may lead his fellows in prayer, provided he
knows a few verses of the Quran. By the very fact of having
made the attestation of faith, affirming his adherence to the
religion and to the community, the Muslim speaks directly to
his Creator with nothing to soften this tremendous encounter,
and his situation would be no different were he to find
himself the last man left on earth. Many Western observers
visiting the lands of Islam before modern manners infiltrated

657
the community and before modern dress, with all that it
implies in the way of vulgarization of the human form, was
widely adopted have remarked upon the “priestly bearing” of
ordinary Muslims going about their everyday business.

This air of dignity, control, and self-containment—as of one

who walks always in the presence of the Sacred—relates
directly to the concept of “vicegerency,” for it goes without
saying that the representative of God on earth must of
necessity comport himself with dignity. The bearer of the
burden—the “Trust”—is not free to live carelessly or to slip
into the ways of vulgarity. This would be to live beneath
himself and, in the pejorative sense of the term, to forget
himself. Moreover, there is no area of life and no corner of
the world, however humble or however hidden, in which he
might cast aside his priestly role. The unitarian perspective of
Islam does not admit the existence of a secular realm in which
man might act purely as a creature of this earth, a “human
animal,” and it does not recognize the division between the
worldly and the Sacred, which appears self-evident to the
Christian. To do so would seem to the Muslim dangerously
close to the sin of shirk (“idolatry” or, to be more precise, the
belief that there are realities independent of The Reality). It
would suggest to him that the world or some particular aspect
of the world could be treated as though it possessed an
existence outside the Divine Pattern. Islam, by its own inner
logic, embraces every possible facet of existence, for God has
named Himself al-Muḥīṭ, the All-Embracing.

If every Muslim is a “priest,” then there can be no laity in

Islam. The ummah (“community”) is, in essence, a sacred
community—hence, the importance of the “consensus of the
believers,” by which many matters are decided, and also the

658
Quranic principle of shūrā (“consultation”), which should
determine matters of government however often this principle
may be ignored in the actual practice of politics. The
integrated life of the community—or of “the city”—is made
possible by the fact that the Prophet was, for the final ten
years of his life, the ruler and spiritual director of a
self-governing city-state, which crystallized, as it were, in the
mold of the revelation which had “descended” upon him. It is
not the laws of man that determine the structure of family life,
the business of trade, bartering in the market, or the
craftsman’s work, but the Law of God.

Man and the Crafts

It is perhaps in the work of the craftsman that we may identify

with particular clarity one of the functions of God’s viceroy
on earth. To make out of raw materials, by means of human
skill and effort (an effort that might aptly qualify as a type of
jihād), objects that are both pleasing to God—since,
according to a ḥadīth, “God is beautiful and He loves
beauty”—and useful to man is a labor worthy of the “children
of Adam” and entirely compatible with their delegated
splendor. To fulfill its function, however, the object that has
been made, humble as it may be—a table, a pot, even a comb
for the hair—must have a dual aspect; it must be useful for
entirely practical purposes, and it must “remind” its user of
the Creator of all things. The craft as such cannot, therefore,
be a merely human invention—and here we are drawn back to
the “perennial philosophy”—for it is axiomatic among those
peoples who, in small corners of the world, have survived
with their most ancient traditions intact, that the crafts were
taught to their ancestors through revelation (by “the gods” or
“spirits”). Islamic tradition echoes this belief by attributing

659
the revelation of craft techniques to different messengers of
God.

Each craft may be said to have a “secret”—as, indeed, has

often been stated by Muslim craftsmen—just as every human
being has a “secret” which is also his point of contact with the
Divine. This view of the crafts shatters all glorification of
modern technology, for this technology, on the one hand,
produces objects that are exclusively utilitarian and entirely
divorced from the Sacred and, on the other, makes the
craftsman obsolete. Such objects are no longer a “reminder”
for those who handle them and no longer a form of prayer for
those who produce them. The viceroy is thereby deprived of
one prayer for those who produce them. The viceroy is
thereby deprived of one of his essential functions—that of
imitating (on however humble a scale) the
creative act, which itself produces in the visible universe the
natural phenomena that are both useful to mankind and, at the
same time, “signs (of God) for people who understand,” as is
stated repeatedly in the Quran.

It is in understanding these natural “signs,” which are an

aspect of God’s eternal message to mankind, that the viceroy
acquires that knowledge which is his most characteristic gift.
It is in treating these signs with respect—that is to say, in
respecting his environment as a whole—that he demonstrates
another aspect of his God-given function. The Muslim is
commanded to “walk softly upon the earth”10 and, although
he is permitted to make use of its products to sustain his life,
there is not a single text either in the Quran or the ḥadīth
literature that could be taken to justify the exploitation of its
riches in a destructive manner.

660
Man and the Social Order

The Islamic concept of man, however, although it gives

absolute precedence to the individual’s direct and unmediated
relationship with God, always places him firmly in his social
context, and it is in his relationship with his fellows that he is
most severely tested. “Manners” (ādāb) are a part of the
religion, and Western observers have made frequent reference
to the “Muslim cult of manners.” All this follows directly
from the principle of vicegerency and from the “priestly”
identity of the believer. The individual “representative of God
on earth” lives and works among others of his own kind; they
are as he is and must be treated as such. This involves a
certain formalism in human relationships, which
contemporary Westerners sometimes find “unnatural” but
which is entirely appropriate for the Muslim, who sees the
human creature as something more than a child of nature. It
has however another aspect, no less important, and this relates
not to man’s glory but to his wretchedness.

The Muslim is required to treat others with a respect due not

to what—in most cases—they are but to what they might be.
This presents a sharp contrast to the modern tendency to
detect feet of clay in every hero and to interpret “realism” in
terms of unmasking the vices and weaknesses of men and
women from an unspoken assumption that evil is in some way
more “real” than good and ugliness more significant than
beauty. This leads all too easily to the assumption that, in
discovering some minor flaw in an otherwise virtuous man,
we have succeeded in exposing falsehood and bringing truth
to light. By the same token, we condemn the “hypocrisy” of
the imperfect man who still attempts to set a good example to
others, and we praise the “honesty” of one who confesses his

661
shortcomings to the world. From the Muslim point of view it
is difficult to perceive what purpose this
“honesty” serves, beyond setting a bad example to the
community.

In this matter Islam starts from first principles. Beauty and

goodness relate to God, Who is the supreme Reality, and have
their source in Him; ugliness and evil relate to nothingness
and have the insubstantiality of shadows. Positive qualities
are, in the proper sense of the term, more real than negative
ones. The pious Muslim, therefore, averts his eyes with a
decent courtesy (which is also a kind of courtesy toward the
Divine Image) from the sores on an otherwise healthy body
and from the flaws which may spoil but cannot annihilate the
potential nobility of those around him, or he will do so as
long as the person concerned desires to be better than he is. It
is the direction that a man or woman tries to follow rather
than the stumbling on the way that is significant.

Muḥammad promised his people that those who “cover” the

sins of their fellows in this world will have their own sins
“covered” by God when they come to judgment, and he
warned them that those who go out of their way to expose the
sins of their fellows in this world will have their own sins
mercilessly exposed on Judgment Day. He told them also that
one sin in the sight of men may be worse than a hundred in
the sight of God. Social stability and the maintenance of “ties
of relationship” are among the highest priorities in the Islamic
scale of values, and, while a private sin may be readily
forgiven, the setting of a bad example is an offense against
the sacred community, which is the vehicle of the Faith.11
The Quran itself rigorously condemns all malicious gossip

662
and backbiting, and it compares the seeking out of a man’s
past sins to “eating the dead flesh of your brother.”

There is, moreover, in all gossip and in every effort to draw

attention to the weaknesses of our fellows an unspoken
assumption that we “know all about them.” In the Islamic
view God alone knows all about anyone. He knows every
thought and hears the secret whisperings of which the soul
itself may be less than fully aware, for He is the sole Owner
of our souls, our minds, and our senses. Above all, He knows
the sirr, the “secret” or innermost nucleus of each being, and
no man can know another’s “secret.”12 In its deepest sense,
therefore, respect for others derives from the hiddenness of
each being’s true identity; and since this identity is intimately
linked to its Source, its Creator and Owner, we dare not
presume that it is worthless. However misshapen the outer
husk may appear, we know that the kernel is present within it;
the husk is corruptible but the kernel is inviolable.

To Become What One Is

For the individual Muslim who aspires to become what he

should be—what in essence he is—the intention to set a good
example to his community does
not preclude an unflinching awareness of his own
shortcomings and of his own inadequacy to fulfill the Trust
which he accepted while still in the “loins of Adam.” Indeed,
this awareness is the precondition for any betterment in his
condition. Except in very rare cases his vicegerency is no
more than a virtuality yet to be realized. Neither the Quran
nor the aḥādīth of the Prophet present a flattering picture of
human nature as it exists; quite the contrary. The principal
motive for following the example of Muḥammad is that in

663
him the Muslim sees the perfect example of one who did
fulfill his function.13 The Muslim feels privileged if he can at
least stumble in these footsteps. He believes that in doing so
he has done all that he can do. To climb from where he is to
the high peak that is the fulfillment of his human role is
clearly an impossible task, but he does not despair since he
knows with certainty that lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā
biʾLlāh, “there is no strength and no force save with God.”

Man’s role in the “impossible ascent” may be summed up in

two words: intention and jihād (understood in this context
simply as “effort”). According to a ḥadīth qudsī recorded by
the most reliable authorities, the taking of one step toward his
Lord brings man the Divine Help he needs: “And if he draws
near to Me by a hand’s span, I draw near to him an arm’s
length; and if he draws near to Me an arm’s length, I draw
near to him a fathom’s length; and if he comes to Me
walking, I race to him.” In other words, God requires very
little of this creature of dust who was nonetheless glorified at
the beginning of time, but He requires that little absolutely.
First, the Muslim must know—knowledge being a duty laid
upon him—what his role is in the created universe and in the
theater of his brief experience of worldly life. Second, he
must wish to fulfill this role and intend to do so with God’s
help. Third, he must put his little strength and his little talents
at the service of this intention.14 The rest is in other hands.

The ambiguities in the Islamic concept of man and in the

human situation as such are therefore resolved in the effort
that the children of Adam, made from dust, exert in the
direction of the viceregal ideal and in the Divine Help that is
offered in response to this effort. And yet the fulfillment of
the viceregal role is but a by-product of man’s primary

664
function, which is to worship God and to open himself to the
Light. “All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God,”
according to the Quran, animals by following their God-given
instincts, inanimate objects by obeying the God-given laws of
the material world. But the child of Adam (to whom God
taught the “names” of all things) stands above this vast
current of universal worship; he does from choice what the
rest of creation does willy-nilly, and he knows what he is
doing.

This it is that makes him the spokesman of creation, doubly

representative; for, if he “represents” God in the province of
the world, he also “represents” the world before God. This is
what it means to be the khalīfat Allāh fiʾl-arḍ, composed of
earthly dust and yet borne aloft by the angels, knower of the
“names,” bearer of the Trust, and yea-sayer in response to the
Divine Question, “Am I not thy Lord?”

Notes

1. “When we speak of the Heart-Intellect we mean the

universal faculty which has the human heart for its symbolical
seat but which, while being ‘crystallised’ according to
different planes of reflection, is none the less ‘divine’ in its
single essence” (F. Schuon, Gnosis: Divine Wisdom, trans. G.
E. H. Palmer [London: John Murray, 1959] 95).

2. See al-Kisāʾī, Qiṣāṣ al-Anbiyāʾ (English translation

published in A Reader on Islam, ed. A. Jeffery [The Hague:
Mouton, 1962] 187).

665
3. H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn
ʿArabī, trans. R. Manheim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1969).

4. “So set thy face towards the religion as one by nature

upright—the fiṭrah of God in which He created (faṭara)
man—there is no altering the creation of God. That is the
eternal religion” (XXX, 30).

5. “By the declining day! Verily man is in a state of loss, save

for those who believe and do good and exhort one another to
Truth and exhort one another to patience” (CIII).

6. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Mathnawī, book 3, v. 2404.

7. Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din, The Book of Certainty (New York:

Samuel Weiser, 1970) 30–31.

8. “To the Muslims a real atheist is not deemed to be a

romantic rebel or a superior philosophical free-thinker, but a
sub-human of limited intellect . . . degraded to the level of
bestiality, if not below” (A. Bennigsen and M. Broxup, The
Islamic Threat to the Soviet State [London: Croom Helm,
1983] 62).

9. “For each of you have We appointed a Divine Law and a

way of life. Had God so willed, He could have made you one
people; but so that He might try you by that which He hath
bestowed upon you (He willed otherwise); so compete in
doing good. Unto God ye will all return, and He will inform
you concerning that wherein ye differ” (V, 48).

666
10. “And the (faithful) servants of the All-Merciful are those
who walk softly upon the earth, and when the foolish ones
address them answer: Peace!” (XXV, 63).

11. “Who is the truly good-mannered Muslim?” asks François

Bonjean, and he answers: the one “who is judged least
unworthy of serving as a model for his children, for his
relatives, for his neighbours, for the inhabitants of his quarter,
for his city or for simple passers-by and for travellers—for the
whole of humanity” (“Culture occidentale et culture
musalmane,” Les Cahiers du Sud, 1947, p. 185).

12. The sirr may also be said to contain the seeds of the
future, which is concealed from mankind but known to God,
and none can foresee what a man may become in the course
of time. The Christian might ask himself whether those who
were acquainted with the rhetorician Augustine in the
whorehouses of Carthage could have guessed that
this dissolute man would grow into Saint Augustine, the
greatest of all the fathers of the church.

13. “The Prophet as Norm is not only the Whole Man

(al-insān al-kāmil) but also the Ancient Man (al-insān
al-qadīm). Here there is a sort of combination of a spatial
with a temporal symbolism; to realize the ‘Whole’ or
‘Universal’ man means to come out from oneself, to project
one’s will into the absolutely ‘Other’, to extend oneself into
the universal life which is that of all things; while to realize
the ‘Ancient’ or ‘Primordial’ man means to return to the
origin which we bear within us; it means to return to eternal
childhood, to rest in our archetype, in our primordial and
normative form, or in our theomorphic substance” (F.

667
Schuon, Understanding Islam, trans. D. M. Matheson
[London: Allen & Unwin, 1979] 102).

14. The Quran emphasizes that God does not “change a

people” until they change themselves, and this is a
double-edged sword. On the one hand, man is helped when he
attempts to change himself for the better; on the other, his
first tentative steps on a downward slope soon gather
momentum.

668
669
 20

Eschatology

WILLIAM C. CHITTICK

THE “LAST DAY” IS A BASIC ARTICLE of Islamic faith,

along with “God, His angels, His Books, and His
Messengers” (Quran IV, 136; cf. II, 177). The Quran
discusses what occurs after death in a detail unparalleled by
other scriptures, and the Ḥadīth literature on the subject is
voluminous. Hence, scholastic theologians, philosophers, and
Sufis—not to speak of Quran commentators—all made
eschatology one of their principal concerns.

The term maʿād (“return” or “place of return”), used

generically for discussions of eschatological realities and
events, is derived from such Quranic verses as “They say,
What, when we are bones and broken bits. . . . Who will cause
us to return?’ Say: ‘He who created you the first time’”
(XVII, 49–51). Systematic discussions of maʿād are often
paired with studies of a second concept, al-mabdaʾ (“origin”
or “place of origin”), for, as the Quran affirms, “As He
originated you, so you will return” (VII, 29; cf. XXI, 104).
Works on “the Origin and the Return” deal with such
questions as the nature of the human being and his
relationship with God, the reason for man’s creation, his
ultimate good and the manner in which he can achieve it, the
various types of individuals that make up the human race and
their respective lodging places in the next world, the

670
ontological distinctions between this world and the next, and
the interpretation of the data found in the Quran and the
Ḥadīth concerning death, resurrection, and heaven and hell.
In a wider context, the topic of “the Origin and the Return”
covers everything that touches upon the manner in which man
can achieve his proper place in creation or attain to human
perfection, whether moral, spiritual, or intellectual. In this
sense, jurisprudence (fiqh) can be considered a branch of
eschatology, since the Sharīʿah is the sine qua non in the path
of human perfection. In the domain of falsafah or philosophy,
ethics (akhlāq) describes the human qualities that bring about
the “practical”
ʿamalī—as opposed to the “theoretical,” ʿilmī) perfections of
the soul, while in Sufism lengthy discussions of the spiritual
stations (maqāmāt) play a similar role. Even politics, which
describes the ideal human society and the means to achieve it,
can be considered a branch of eschatology, since man’s
temporal good can be understood only in terms of his eternal
good. In short, the ramifications of eschatological teachings
are so broad that it is difficult to study anything Islamic
without touching upon them. Here we can only allude to
certain wider implications while dealing in some small detail
with the science of the “last things” as such.

Eschatology in the Quran and the Ḥadīth

A number of studies on the eschatological teachings of the

Quran and the Ḥadīth exist in English, and two of the
standard Ḥadīth collections devoted to the subject have been
translated. Here there is room only for a brief outline. A
standard statement of Sunni Muslim faith, the “Creed” of
Najm al-Dīn Nasafī (d. 537/1142–43), is quoted below. In the
commentary that follows, a few relevant Quranic verses and

671
Ḥadīth are cited; most of the Ḥadīth are from Shīʿite sources,
which are not well known in English.

The chastisement of the grave for the infidels and some of the disobedient
faithful and the bliss in the grave for the People of Obedience, as known and
willed by God, and the questioning of Munkar and Nakīr are established by
proofs [i.e., explicit revealed texts]. The Upraising is true, the Weighing is
true, the Book is true, the Questioning is true, the Pool is true, the Path is
true, the Garden is true, and the Fire is true. These last two are created and
exist now; they will subsist, and neither they nor their inhabitants will pass
away. . . . The signs of the Hour, such as the appearance of al-Dajjāl [the
Antichrist], the Beast of the Earth, and Gog and Magog, the descent of Jesus
from heaven, and the rising of the sun in the west, are true.1

The Prophet called death “the only preacher you need,” and
its remembrance colors all of of Islamic spirituality. One
might say that a Muslim is not sincere until he takes to heart
such Quranic verses as “What is with you is perishing, but
what is with God abides” (XVI, 96); “God is better, and more
abiding” (XX, 73); “Everything is perishing but His Face”
(XXVIII, 88); “Every soul will taste death” (III, 185); “Oh
man! Thou art laboring unto thy Lord laboriously, and thou
shalt encounter Him!” (LXXXIV, 6); “Surely the death from
which you are fleeing will meet you: then you will be
returned to the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible, and He
will tell you what you were doing” (LXII, 8). Probably the
most common epitaph in the Islamic world is this verse:
“Surely we belong to God, and to Him we return” (II, 156).

The Grave. Death is brought about by the intervention of the

“angel of death,” called ʿIzrāʾīl; giving up the soul to him is a
difficult process, but it is made easy for the faithful. The dead
person is aware of his body after death and observes the
process of burial. On the first night in the grave, he is
questioned by two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, concerning his

672
faith. According to Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), “The
spirits of the faithful are in rooms of the Garden: they eat its
food, drink its drinks, and visit one another. They say, ‘Our
Lord, bring the Hour to accomplish what Thou hast
promised.’ . . . The spirits of the infidels are in rooms of the
Fire: they eat its food, drink its drinks, and visit one another.
They say, ‘Our Lord, bring not the Hour to accomplish what
Thou hast promised!’” According to the Prophet, “The grave
is one of the plots of the Garden or one of the pits of the
Fire.” The period between death and the Day of Resurrection
is known as the barzakh or “isthmus”; it is alluded to by this
name in the Quranic verse, “Behind them is a barzakh until
the day they are raised up” (XXIII, 100). The term barzakh
gradually assumes major importance in discussion of
eschatology, especially in Sufism and philosophy.

The Upraising. The dead remain in their graves until the Day
of Resurrection, which corresponds to the end of this world.
“And the Trumpet shall be blown; then behold, they are
hastening from their tombs unto their Lord” (XXXVI, 51).
Al-Ghazzālī lists over one hundred names for this event,
derived from Quranic verses and ḥadīths; among them are the
Day of Regret (XIX, 39), the Day of Reckoning (XXXVIII,
16), the Day of the Earthquake (XXII, 1), the Day of the
Terror (LVI, 1), the Day of the Clatterer (CI, 1), the Day of
the Indubitable (LXIX, 1), the Day of the Encounter (XL, 15),
the Day of the Gathering (XLII, 7), the Day wherein is no
doubt (III, 9), the Day when no soul will avail another in
aught (II, 48), the Day when eyes will stare (XIV, 42), the
Day a man will flee his brother, his mother, and his father
(LXXX, 34), and the Day they shall not speak (LXXVII,
35).2

673
The Weighing. Once the resurrection takes place, the works of
people will be evaluated: “We will set up the just balance for
the Resurrection Day, so that no soul will be wronged
anything: even if it be the weight of a grain of mustard seed,
We will produce it” (XXI, 48). According to ʿAlī, ‘The
creatures will be seized by the Balance of Justice on the Day
of Resurrection: God will requite them on behalf of each
other through the Balance.”

The Book. “On that day you will be exposed, not one secret of
yours concealed. Then as for him who is given his book in his
right hand, he will be in a pleasing life, in a lofty Garden. . . .
But as for him who is given his book in his left hand, he will
say, ‘Would that I had not been given my book and had not
known my reckoning!’. . .” (LXIX, 18–26). Concerning
the verse, “Read thy book! Thy soul suffices thee this day as a
reckoner against thee” (XVII, 14), Imam Jaʿfar says, “The
servant will remember everything he has done and is written
against him, exactly as if he had done it in that hour. This is
the meaning of God’s words, ‘And the book shall be set in
place; and thou wilt see the sinners fearful of what is in it and
saying, “Alas for us! How is it with this book, that it leaves
nothing behind, small or great, but has counted it?”’” (XVIII,
50).

The Questioning. “We shall surely question them, every one,

about what they were doing” (XV, 92–93). According to Ibn
ʿAbbās, the questioning will not take the form, “Did you do
such and such?” but rather, “Why did you do such and such?”
Asked about predestination, Imam Jaʿfar replied, “When God
gathers His servants on the Day of Resurrection, He will ask
them concerning that which he entrusted to them (ʿahada
ʿalayhim), not that which He predestined for them.”

674
The Pond. The Prophet often spoke of the Pond which God
had bestowed upon him, as mentioned in Quran CVIII, 1:
“Verily We have given thee ‘al-Kawthar’ [the pond].” For
example, “My Pond is one month’s journey wide, its water
whiter than milk, its fragrance sweeter than musk, and its jugs
like the stars of heaven; whosoever drinks from it will never
thirst.” According to ʿAlī, the Prophet said, “He who does not
have faith in my Pond will not be given entrance to it by
God.”

The Path. This is a bridge that stretches over hell; for the
faithful it is wide, for infidels narrow and sharper than a
sword. Of the thirty-eight occurrences of the word ṣirāṭ in the
Quran, most refer to the “straight path” of Islam, and only one
or two are said to refer to the bridge (cf. XXXVII, 23–24).
Ibn ʿAbbās reports that the verse “Verily thy Lord is at the
Watch” (LXXXIX, 14) refers to the Path’s seven stations, at
each of which God questions men: at the first concerning the
testimony of faith, at the second concerning the ritual prayer,
etc. According to Imam Jaʿfar, “People will cross the Path,
which is thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword, in
groups: some will cross it like lightning, some like galloping
horses, some crawling, some walking, and some while
dangling from it.”

The Garden. Numerous Quranic verses promise the faithful

the everlasting enjoyment of paradise. Among its delights will
be “gardens underneath which rivers flow” (II, 25 etc.),
“purified spouses” (II, 25 etc.), “God’s good pleasure” (III, 15
etc.), “a shelter of plenteous shade” (IV, 57), “forgiveness and
a generous provision” (VIII, 4 etc.), “palaces” (XXV, 10),
“goodly dwelling places” (IX, 27 etc.), “couches set face to
face” (XV, 47 etc.), “abundant fruits” (XXXVIII, 51 etc.),

675
“maidens restraining their glances” (XXXVII, 48 etc.),
“wide-eyed houris” (XLIV, 54 etc.), “immortal youths, going
round about them with goblets, ewers, and a cup from a
spring” (LVI,
17–18), “platters of gold” (XLIII, 71), and “all that your souls
desire” (XLI, 31 etc.).

The Fire. The infidels’ share of the next world is “the Fire,
whose fuel is men and stones” (II, 24 etc.). Its chastisement is
“tremendous” (II, 7 etc.), “painful” (II, 10 etc.), “the most
terrible” (II, 85 etc.), “humbling” (II, 90 etc.), “lasting” (V, 37
etc.), “evil” (VI, 157 etc.), and “harsh” (XXIV, 17 etc.). The
infidels will encounter “the curse of God, the angels, and
men, altogether” (II, 206 etc.), “an evil cradling” (II, 206
etc.), “an evil homecoming” (II, 126 etc.), drinks of “boiling
water” (VI, 79 etc.) and “oozing pus” (XIV, 16), “garments of
fire” (XXII, 19), “hooked iron rods” (XXII, 21), “fetters and
chains on their necks” (XL, 71), “burning winds and boiling
water and the shadow of a smoking blaze” (LVI, 42–43),
“fetters, and a furnace, and food that chokes” (LXXIII,
12–13), and “a threefold shadow, unshading and giving no
relief against the flames” (LXXVII, 30–32). “When they are
cast, coupled in fetters, into a narrow place of the Fire, they
will call out there for destruction. ‘Call not out today for one
destruction—call for many!’” (XXV, 13–14).

The Hour. Many verses and a number of short chapters of the

Quran (e.g., LXXXI, LXXXII, LXXXIV, XCIX, CI) are
dedicated to describing the end of this world, which takes
place immediately preceding the Resurrection: “the Day of
Doom . . . when the command shall belong only to God”
(LXXXII, 17). God alone knows the time of its arrival (VII,
187; XXXIII, 63), but the preparatory signs are described in

676
detail. Gog and Magog and the Beast of the Earth are
mentioned in the Quran: “When Gog and Magog are
unloosed, and they slide down out of every slope, and nigh
has drawn the true promise . . .” (XXI, 96); “When the Word
falls on them, We shall bring forth for them out of the earth a
beast that shall speak unto them” (XXVII, 82). According to
ʿAlī, when the beast appears, “he will carry Solomon’s seal
and Moses’ staff. He will place the seal on the face of every
believer, leaving the words, ‘This is a believer in truth’; and
on the face of every infidel, leaving the words, ‘This is an
infidel in truth.’. . . Then the Beast will raise its head, and
everyone from east to west will see it, after the sun has risen
from the west. When it lifts its head, repentance will no
longer be accepted.” Before the world’s end al-Dajjāl will
rule for a period, and then be killed by Jesus. The Mahdī, a
descendant of the Prophet who “resembles me more than
anyone else” and is identified in Shīʿite sources with the
twelfth Imam, will also appear at the end of time, and Jesus
will pray behind him. According to some ḥadīths, Jesus will
establish a reign of justice; according to others, the Mahdī
“will fill the earth with justice and equity as it had been filled
with injustice and oppression.” As the final end approaches,
“God will send a cold wind from the direction of Syria, and
no
one who has in his heart as much as a single grain of good
shall remain in the earth without being taken.” Then the
trumpet will be blown, and everyone will perish.

The eschatological teachings outlined above have often been

taken at face value; this was especially the case among
theologians, traditionists, and Sufis before al-Ghazzālī,
though the philosophers from the beginning offered
interpretative views. Even in the eighth/fourteenth century,

677
250 years after al-Ghazzālī and 100 years after Ibn ʿArabī, a
Sufi of the stature of ʿIzz al-Dīn Kāshānī (d. 735/1334–35)
could write as follows in his classic Miṣbāḥ al-hidāyah (Lamp
of Guidance):

It is incumbent upon everyone to have faith in the World of the Unseen and
the states of the next world just as they are described in the Quran and the
Ḥadīth. . . . He must not begin to interpret and explain these for himself with
his weak intellect and feeble understanding, nor try to understand how and in
what manner they occur, for the human intellect cannot encompass the
sciences of faith.3

But al-Ghazzālī had already answered such objections in a

manner that the community as a whole had to accept:

You may say that these explanations and details are opposed to what the men
of knowledge have discussed in their books, for they have said, “These
affairs can only be known through imitation (taqlīd) and tradition (samāʿ);
human insight cannot reach them.” . . . But my words are not opposed to
theirs, and everything they have said in explaining the next world is correct.
However, it has not gone beyond the explanation of what will be perceived
there. Either they have not known the spiritual realities, or they have not
explained them, since most people cannot understand them. Whatever [in the
next world] is of a corporeal nature can only be known through tradition and
imitating the Prophet, but these other things are a branch of the knowledge of
the spirit’s reality, and there is a way to know that: spiritual insight and
inward contemplation.4

Elsewhere al-Ghazzālī points out that the reality of death

cannot be known without understanding the reality of life, and
this in turn depends upon knowledge of the spirit (rūḥ),
“which is your own self” (or “soul,” nafs).5 The terms rūḥ
and nafs are often used interchangeably to designate the
ultimate human substance, though many authorities
distinguish between them; in general theologians and Sufis
prefer rūḥ, philosophers nafs. Thus, in what follows, “spirit”
and “soul” are essentially synonymous.

678
The Origin and the Return

Islamic teachings about the nature of man revolve around the

fact that, according to the Prophet, God created man “upon
His own Form” or “upon
the Form of the All-Merciful.” In the Quranic account God
made Adam His vicegerent (khalīfah), knowing “all the
names” (II, 30–31), gave him the Trust (XXXIII, 72),
“honored” his children (XVII, 70), and subjected to him
“everything in the heavens and the earth” (XXXI, 20). These
and many other passages are interpreted to refer to the unique
position of man among the creatures.

Ibn ʿArabī and his followers provide a clear commentary on

such verses in harmony with Islamic teachings in general. The
Divine Names mentioned in the Quran are the archetypes of
all creatures; the heavens and the earth and all they contain,
often referred to in the Quran as the “signs” of God, are the
outward manifestations of the ontological perfections referred
to by the Names. In their multiplicity the individual creatures
of the cosmos reflect the multiple Names of God, and the
cosmos as a whole reflects the “all-comprehensive” Name
Allāh or its near synonym the “All-Merciful” (al-Raḥmān).
“Call upon Allah, or call upon the All-Merciful: whichever
you call upon, to Him belong the Names Most Beautiful”
(XVII, 110). At the same time each human being, made upon
God’s Form, also reflects the Name Allāh: microcosm and
macrocosm are mirror images, and each in turn reflects God.
Man’s uniqueness lies in the fact that he brings together all
the realities of the universe in a summarized and
all-comprehensive unity; he embraces within himself—at
least potentially—the ontological perfections of all things.

679
Existence in its total deployment can be pictured as a circle.
Beginning as a single point that represents the Creative
Principle, the various existents become deployed in a
clockwise descent that includes spiritual entities such as
angels, intermediate entities connecting the spiritual and
corporeal worlds, and then the whole range of corporeal
entities, from the simple (the four elements) to the complex
(minerals, plants, and animals). The human embryo then
represents the lowest point in the circle and the beginning of
the “arc of ascent,” which extends back through the corporeal,
intermediate, and spiritual worlds to the Divine Presence. The
full circle represents the outward manifestation of all
archetypes or Divine Names, i.e., the whole cosmos, in both
its unseen (or spiritual) and visible (or corporeal) dimensions.
The perfect man, who traverses the circle of being and
actualizes each point, then becomes the point at the center of
the circle, standing equidistant from all points on the
circumference. As the actualized Form of the Name Allāh, the
perfect man manifests all other Names equally; were one of
them to dominate over him, he would fall into disequilibrium
and imperfection, since he would no longer be an
“all-comprehensive” creature but would manifest certain
realities more than others.

When a human being is born into this world, he is, as a child

of Adam,
created upon the form of Allāh, but the infinite ontological
perfections alluded to by this Name remain potentialities
hidden within him. As he grows, he begins to actualize his
potential perfections. Philosophical, theological, and Sufi
texts on the soul often point out that man first gains the
perfections of the vegetative soul, then those of the animal
soul, and only then does he begin to become a true human

680
being. But his entry into the human world around the time of
puberty—when the practice of Islam becomes incumbent
upon him—marks only the first step on an infinite ascent.
Man, made in God’s image, knows no limits.

In a formulation somewhat different from that found in Ibn

ʿArabī’s school, Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 654/1256) speaks of
five stages of man referred to in the Quran: (1) nonexistence
in God’s knowledge, (2) existence in the world of the spirits,
(3) attachment of the spirit to the body, (4) separation from
the bodily frame, (5) return to the frame. Each stage is
necessary for the actualization of the perfections required by
certain Divine Names. Through the first stage man perceives
God as Creator; through the second he comes to know Him
by such Attributes as Will, Life, Speech, Sight, and Power;
through the third he knows Him as the Provider, the Forgiver,
the Munificent, etc.; through the fourth he comes to know
Him as the Slayer, and through the fifth as the Reviver.6

The goal of the passage through the worlds is the “acquisition

of knowledge” or the realization of every concomitant and
every concrete manifestation of the Names taught to Adam.
For, in the words of the Sufi poet and philosopher Jāmī (d.
898/1492), “Man in his primordial nature (fiṭrah) is plain, a
receptacle for all attributes.”7 In the more philosophical
language of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640), “Every human soul,
because of its primordial nature given by God, is worthy to
know the realities of all things.”8 This conception of the
human reality is often expressed by affirming an innate
knowledge of universal realities that cannot be actualized
until the soul learns the particular things. In Najm al-Dīn
Rāzī’s words,

681
In the beginning the spirit had knowledge of universais and not of particulars;
it had knowledge of the World of the Unseen but not of the visible world.
When it was joined to this world and duly trained and nurtured, it acquired
knowledge of both universals and particulars, and became “knower of the
Unseen and the visible” as God’s vicegerent. In the world of the spirits, it had
not the strength or instruments required for the tasks of the Lord’s
vicegerency; it was in this (lower) world that it acquired the necessary
strength and instruments, and thus attained the perfection of the degree of
vicegerency.9

Another well-known Sufi, ʿAzīz al-Dīn Nasafī (d. before 700/

1300), describes man’s ascent to perfection in terms of
spiritual light:

Every individual existent possesses in itself and of itself what it must have.
The spirit does not come from anywhere nor go anywhere. The spirit is light,
and the cosmos is overflowing with light, for light is its spirit, moving it
toward perfection. . . . At one level this light is called “nature,” at another
level “spirit,” at another “intellect,” and at still another “Nondelimited Light.”
...

At the first level, life, knowledge, will, and power [the fundamental divine
Attributes] do not exist in actuality. But as the existents move up through the
levels, gradually life, knowledge, will, power, hearing, sight, and speech
come to exist in actuality. . . . In other words, that light which is the spirit of
the cosmos and with which the cosmos is overflowing does not possess at
that level knowledge, will, and power in actuality, but as the light gradually
moves up the levels, life, knowledge, will, and power come to exist in
actualized mode.10

Man’s Infinite Potentiality

Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), the “chief shaykh” of the Peripatetic

philosophers, provides a clear formulation of the fundamental
human nature in the language of falsafah:

The perfection peculiar to the rational soul is for it to become an intellective

world within which is inscribed the form of the whole, the intelligible order
of the whole, and the good that is effused into the whole; it begins with

682
[knowledge of God, i.e.] the Origin of the whole, moves on to [knowledge of]
nondelimited, spiritual, noble substances; then to spiritual substances having
a kind of attachment to bodies; and then to the celestial corporeal bodies with
all their dispositions and faculties. The soul continues in this manner until it
realizes fully within itself the disposition peculiar to existence as a whole.
Hence it is transformed into an intelligible world parallel to the entire existent
cosmos; it contemplates that which is Absolute Comeliness, Absolute Good,
and True Beauty, and it becomes united with it.11

As the form of all the Names—all the ontological

possibilities—the human substance is able to achieve a total
correspondence with the entire cosmos. But there is no
guarantee that a person will reach such a station, and in fact
the vast majority of human beings stop short before realizing
their full perfection. In effect, they actualize only some of the
ontological potentialities embraced by their
all-comprehensive primordial nature; they cease to reflect all
the Divine Names and become loci of manifestation for only
some of them. They become mirrors for part of the universe
instead of the whole. They leave the centrality of the human
state, and, instead of being all creatures and all creation, they
become this creature or that. Particularly in Sufi texts, the
infinite potentiality of the human state is perceived as a kind
of unlimited malleability that allows man to become anything
at all.
Thus ʿAzīz al-Dīn Nasafī explains that the earth cannot play
the role of water, nor the grape vine that of the almond tree,
nor the eye that of the ear.

683
34. “Satan in the form of a dragon,” Add. 18576 (11a).

Have you not recognized that each thing fulfills its fixed function, but that
man can necessarily fulfill the function of all? . . . Thus man is defined in the
sense that he can assume the qualities of every other creature. . . . According
to whether he assumes the qualities of this or that creature, it is this or that

684
creature that he becomes, even though outwardly he may have the form of a
man.12

Long before Nasafī, the poet Sanāʾī (d. 525/1130–31) had

described man as compounded of all the worlds—material,
psychic, and spiritual—and hence “molded of heart and clay.”
Each existent other than man assumes a single aspect,
according to its fixed place in the hierarchy of existence, but
man cannot be reduced to “one color.”13 Rūmī (d. 672/1273)
often refers to man’s infinite potentiality: “God will give you
what you seek. Wherever your aspiration lies, that you will
become.”14 His son Sulṭān Walad (d. 712/1312) makes an
explicit connection between this teaching and eschatology:

Man is compounded of form and meaning, of satanic and divine; every

instant the houris of paradise and the devils of hell show their faces from his
inward reality so that it may be seen which vein and which attribute dominate
over him. His desire takes him to that form with which he has a greater
affinity (munāsabah); it becomes his qiblah and beloved. Necessarily in the
end he will become identical to it and be resurrected with it.15

Again in Rūmī’s words,

Whatever makes you tremble—know that you are worth just that! That is
why the heart of God’s lover is greater than His Throne.16

According to the ḥadīth qudsī, “My heavens and My earth

encompass Me not, but the heart of My gentle, faithful, and
meek servant does encompass Me.” The servant whose heart
encompasses God has become the perfect man by actualizing
the Divine Form upon which he was created; having
comprehended all the Divine Names, he contains within
himself the form of every creature. This is the meaning of Ibn

685
ʿArabī’s famous verse, “My heart has become a receptacle for
every form, a pasture for gazelles and a cloister for Christian
monks.”17 In a similar vein Ibn ʿArabī alludes to a ḥadīth
found in Muslim’s authoritative collection: God will appear at
the Resurrection in a multitude of forms, but His creatures
will deny Him until He appears in a form that corresponds to
their own belief. It is only the perfect men, whose hearts
encompass all the Divine Names in perfect equilibrium, who
will recognize God in whatever form He displays.

He who delimits God [according to his own belief] denies Him in everything
other than his own delimitation, acknowledging Him only when He reveals
Himself within that delimitation. But he who frees Him from all delimitation
never denies Him, acknowledging Him in every form in which He appears.18

Mullā Ṣadrā summarizes this discussion in philosophical

terms:

The soul is the “junction of the two seas” (XVIII, 59) of corporeal and
spiritual things. . . . If you consider its substance in this world, you will find it
the principle of all the bodily powers, employing all the animal and vegetal
forms in its service. But if you consider its substance in the world of the
Intellect, you will find that at the beginning of its fundamental nature it is
pure potential without any form in that world. . . . Its initial relation to the
form of that world is that of the seed to the fruit, or of the embryo to the
animal: just as the embryo is in actuality an embryo, and an animal only
potentially, so (at first) the soul is in actuality a mere mortal man, but
potentially (realized) Intellect.19

Through life in this world the soul’s potentialities become

actualized; death is in no way an imperfection, since, as stated
in the commonly quoted ḥadīth, it is merely “transferal from
one abode to another.” In Mullā Ṣadrā’s terms, death occurs
once the soul has actualized all its potentialities. Having no
more need for the material body, it discards it in order to
move on to the next stage of its existence.

686
The reason for physical death is that the soul reaches perfection and
independence in existence, so it turns through its ingrained activity and effort
toward another world. Thus, as its essence gains strength, little by little, until
it attains a new kind of existence, it cuts off its connection [with the body] by
strengthening its connection to another body, which is acquired in accordance
with its moral qualities and psychic dispositions. Hence, first and in essence
it takes on a second life; but as an accidental corollary, its physical life comes
to an end. . . .

Attaining the degree of substantiality, actuality, and independence is shared

by faithful and infidel . . . and by many animals that have an actualized
imaginal faculty. There is no contradiction between this ontological
perfection and substantial independence on the one hand and wretchedness
and suffering torment through the fire of hell . . . on the other; on the
contrary, these things merely confirm our conclusion. For the fact that the
existence [of the individual] is strengthened and accentuated and that it
departs from material coverings and veils results in an increased intensity in
the perception of pains.20

The Role of the Body

In the above passage, Mullā Ṣadrā speaks of the soul’s

discarding its body through its connection to “another body.”
He, Ibn ʿArabī, and others
maintain that a body is indispensable to the soul at all stages
of its existence; in fact, they are following Quranic usage,
where nafs most often refers to the whole human reality, not
just to the spiritual side of man’s existence.21 In Ibn ʿArabī’s
words, “When God created the human spirit, He created it
governing a natural (ṭabīʿī) sensory form, whether in this
world, in the barzakh, or wherever.”22 Like Rūmī, Ibn ʿArabī
compares the individual souls of men to patches of light
thrown down into separate courtyards by the “sun,” that is,
the “single soul” (Quran VII, 189) from which the souls were
created. The individual existence of a soul thus depends upon
the locus within which it becomes manifested. After death,

687
“God desires the subsistence of these lights in keeping with
the disparity they have assumed,” so He creates bodies for
them in the barzakh, through which they remain distinct from
other souls.23 Mullā Ṣadrā explains that the total potentiality
of the human primordial nature cannot be actualized without
bodies, since man is in need of the physical senses to
actualize his imaginal faculty. “Then, on the basis of correct
images, the soul is able to extract disengaged meanings, and
from these it can come to understand its own world, its
Origin, and its Return.”24

The all-comprehensive human reality has to be a potential

locus of manifestation for every Divine Name, including
those, like the “Outward” (al-ẓāhir), which demand a mode of
existence at the outermost limit of manifestation. Otherwise,
man would not encompass “all the worlds” and would cease
to be man. Hence, for Mullā Ṣadrā, the resurrection of the
body follows from the very definition of the human being,
and he marshals his formidable powers of reasoning to prove
its reality. It is impossible here even to allude to his various
complicated proofs; it need be mentioned only that he
maintains vehemently the fundamental identity of the
resurrection body and the body man possesses in this world,
in spite of certain differences. This is because bodily nature is
determined solely by “form” (in the Aristotelian sense) and
not by “matter,” which is nonmanifest without form.
Therefore the body is the same body, even though the
ontological conditions of the barzakh and the resurrection
differ in certain respects from those in this world.25

A barzakh is an intermediate reality that both separates and

comprehends what lies on either side. It is a name given to the
“world of suspended images” (Suhrawardī) or the “world of

688
imagination” (Ibn ʿArabī), the intermediate ontological
realms that separate the ocean of the spirits from that of the
corporeal bodies: “He let forth the two seas that meet
together, between them a barzakh they do not overpass”
(Quran LV, 20). Like the world of the spirits, the barzakh is
immaterial, but like that of the corporeal
bodies, it possesses shape, form, and number. Without it, the
spiritual beings, which are luminous and disengaged
(mujarrad) from matter, could have no contact with beings of
the corporeal world, which are material and tenebrous. Ibn
ʿArabī states:

The barzakh is the junction of the two seas: the sea of spiritual meanings and
the sea of sensory objects. The sensory things cannot be meaning (maʿnā),
nor can the meanings be sensory. But the World of Imagination, which we
have called “the junction of the two seas,” gives meanings corporeal shape
and makes sensory objects into subtle realities.26

In the same way, without the animal soul, which is the locus
of imagination in man, the human spirit or “rational soul”
could not govern his body.

Ibn ʿArabī distinguishes between the barzakh located on the

descending arc of the circle of being and that on the
ascending arc. The first of these barzakhs acts as the
ontological nexus between spiritual and corporeal realities,
while the second—called the “grave” in many
ḥadīths—grows up from human acts and moral qualities as a
fruit grows on a tree.27

In the human microcosm, the world of imagination is directly

reflected in the faculty of imagination, which is experienced
most clearly in dreams, when we see, hear, smell, taste, and
feel without any corresponding objects outside of the mind. In

689
the view of Mullā Ṣadrā, the imagination is a faculty that
creates images in our mind, whether or not these correspond
to objects in the outside world. Hence, even during
wakefulness, the imagination creates in the mind the image of
the object that the eye has “perceived.” The imagination has
an infinite power of conjuration, since it can picture all that
exists and all that does not exist. The ultimate source of this
ability is the fact that man is the microcosm containing all
things in himself, while his imagination is a locus of
manifestation (maẓhar) for the Divine Name “He who gives
form” (al-Muṣawwir).

The conclusion reached by Mullā Ṣadrā is that after death

man exists in the barzakh in an imaginal body whose very
substance is produced by himself. This does not mean that the
barzakh is “imaginary”; in fact, it is far more real than this
world, since it lies at a higher point on the circle of being. In
the words of the Prophet, “People are asleep, but when they
die, they wake up.” None of what man witnesses in the next
stage of existence is outside his own soul, but the reality of
the soul, as the Form of God, is ultimately without limits. So
it should not be surprising when Mullā Ṣadrā calls the
“imaginal” experiences of the next world “more strongly
substantial, more firmly established, and more permanent in
reality than material forms.”28

Equilibrium and Deviation: Mercy and Wrath

The goal of Islam is to guide mankind to ultimate felicity by

establishing equilibrium on the individual level and on the
social level. This means that the human substance, made upon
the form of the all-comprehensive Names Allāh and
All-Merciful, must be shown the way to actualize all the

690
concomitants of the individual Divine Names. Mullā Ṣadrā
summarizes the destiny and felicity of the soul in the
following terms:

In respect to its intellective essence, the felicity of the soul lies in its attaining
to pure intellectual realities and becoming the locus for divine forms, for the
order of existence, and for the disposition of the Whole, from God Himself
down to the lowest levels of existence. As for the soul’s perfection and
felicity in respect to its companionship with the body . . . this lies in the
attainment of “justice.” . . . This means that it must achieve perfect balance
among opposing moral qualities.29

By employing the term “justice” (ʿadālah), derived from the

same root as the word “equilibrium” (iʿtidāl), Mullā Ṣadrā is
alluding to the point of contact between the ultimate
perfection of the human soul—sometimes called the station of
the perfect man, who stands at the point at the center of the
circle—and the science of ethics, whether considered as a
branch of philosophy, Sufism, or the Shariʿah. In the words
of perhaps the greatest Muslim authority on the philosophical
study of ethics, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), “Among
virtues, none is more perfect than the virtue of Justice, as is
obvious in the discipline of Ethics, for the true mid-point is
Justice, all else being peripheral to it and taking its reference
therefrom.”30

Already al-Ghazzālī had identified justice with the straight

path of Islam, “the true mean among the opposite moral
qualities.”31 He summarizes Islamic ethics in his Iḥyāʾ when
speaking of the four basic kinds of human attributes: beastly
(bahīmī), predatory (sabʿī), satanic (shayṭānī), and lordly or
seigneurial (rabbānī). It is as if “the total in man’s skin is a
pig, a dog, a devil, and a wise man.” The first three kinds of
attributes must be put under the domination of the fourth,

691
which is manifested most clearly in man’s intellect (ʿaql). If
the latter dominates, “the matter is in equilibrium, and justice
appears in the kingdom of the body and all proceeds on the
Straight Path.”32 Otherwise man will be in the service of the
pig, dog, or devil, and he will fail to achieve human status.
This is in fact the state of most men, and it explains their lot
in the next world.

The Sharīʿah and the ṭarīqah provide the framework in which

the “true mean” among the moral qualities can be achieved;
they allow man to follow the advice of the oft-quoted ḥadīth:
“Assume the moral traits of Allah (takhallaqū bi-akhlāq
Allāh)”; in other words, “Actualize all the Divine
Names upon the form of which you were created.”
Al-Ghazzālī refers to the actualization of these Names as the
station of taʾalluh (a word derived from the same root as the
Name Allāh), i.e., “being like unto Allāh” or
“theomorphism.”33 Later philosophers adopted this term as a
definition of human perfection; thus Mullā Ṣadrā is often
referred to as the “theomorphic sage” (al-ḥakīm
al-mutaʾallih).

Al-Farghānī (d. ca. 700/1300), a follower of Ibn ʿArabī,

explains that man must follow the Sharīʿah, because only it
can open the way toward the actualization of his theomorphic
nature; only the Law can protect him from being overcome by
the multiplicity and disequilibrium of the sensory world. In
our present state, nature veils the spiritual world and its
properties of oneness, equilibrium, and simplicity. By
following the Sharīʿah, a person gains an actualized
connection (taʿalluq) to certain Divine Names closely related
to Unity that formerly had only been latent within himself.
Thus, God is the Guide (al-Hādī), the Right-Guider

692
(al-Rashīd), the All-Compassionate (al-Raḥīm), the Forgiver
(al-Ghafūr), and the Pardoner (al-ʿAfū), but to benefit from
these Names a person must accept the Divine Guidance and
Compassion that are offered—that is, he must submit to the
message from heaven.34

In this discussion it is essential to recognize the distinction

between the Names of Mercy and Gentleness, such as those
mentioned above, and those of Wrath and Severity, such as
the Vengeful, the Terrible, the Abaser, and the Almighty.
According to the ḥadīth qudsī, “My Mercy precedes My
Wrath”; so the Names of Mercy take precedence over those of
Wrath. The reason for this is simply that Mercy is the very
nature of God, whereas Wrath comes into play in connection
with certain of His creatures. In the words of ʿAbd al-Karīm
al-Jīlī (d. ca. 832/1428), “God said, ‘My Mercy embraces all
things’ (Quran VII, 156), but He did not say, ‘My Wrath
embraces all things,’ for He created all things as a mercy from
Him. . . . The secret in this is that Mercy is the Attribute of
His Essence, but Wrath is not.”35 Moreover, since man is
created upon the “Form of the All-Merciful,” the equilibrium
attained by the perfect men relates directly to the Attributes of
the Essence, such as Unity. But disequilibrium, deviation, and
multiplicity relate to those Names—the Names of
Wrath—which are in one respect opposed to the Names of
Mercy.

This is why theologians and jurists such as Abū Ḥanīfah (d.

150/767) often point out that evil deeds are debarred from any
connection with such merciful Attributes as Good-Pleasure
(al-riḍā) and Guidance.36 In expanding on such teachings,
Ibn ʿArabī draws a clear distinction between the paths of
Mercy and Wrath: though all things return to God, their

693
returns are conditioned by the particular Names to which they
are connected. Hence God
calls us to follow the path of justice and equilibrium, which
will lead us to the Names of Mercy: “God calls us to worship
Him according to the path which connects us to our own
particular felicity.” As his commentator points out, all paths
lead to God but each takes us to a different name.

Names are different in respect of their realities and effects. How is “He who
harms” comparable to “He who benefits,” or “the Bestower” comparable to
“the Preventer”? How is “the Avenger” comparable to “the Forgiver,” or “the
Benign Benefactor” to “the Vanquisher”?37

God is the Just (al-ʿadl), and thus He “puts everything in its

proper place” (al-ʿadl huwa wadʿ al-shayʾ fī mawḍiʿihi). This
means that those creatures who have actualized the Form of
the All-Merciful upon which they were created enjoy Mercy,
while those who have not actualized the human potential
suffer Wrath, since they remain in multiplicity and
disequilibrium. The Quran makes a clear connection between
Wrath and the chastisement of hell (e.g., IV, 93; VIII, 16;
XLII, 16; XLVIII, 6). The early Sufi al-Niffarī (d. 360/971)
points out the relationship between the Names of Wrath and
the fire on the one hand and the Names of Mercy and the
garden on the other; he declares that the fire derives from
“otherness,” that is, being veiled from God and from one’s
own primordial nature by separation and plurality. “Unveiling
is the Garden of the Garden, veiling the Fire of the Fire.”38 In
short, “to enter the garden” is to actualize the form upon
which one was created and to attain to Mercy, whereas
“entering the fire” means to be separated from one’s
theomorphic selfhood. In the words of F. Schuon:

694
The good reason for the sanctions beyond death is apparent once we are
aware of human imperfection; being a disequilibrium that imperfection
ineluctably calls forth its own repercussion. . . . The fire beyond the grave is
definitely nothing but our own intellect actualized in opposition to our own
falsehood. . . . Man therefore condemns himself; according to the Quran
[XXIV, 24, XXVI, 64, XLI, 20–22] it is his members themselves which
accuse him; once beyond the realm of lies his violations are transformed into
flames.39

Certain Sufis maintain that after death—as before

death—God reveals Himself to man primarily in the mode of
Mercy, but the infidel’s corrupted nature perceives that Mercy
as Wrath. In Niffarī’s words, “That through which He blesses
in the Garden is the same as that through which He chastises
in the Fire.” Ibn ʿArabī is more explicit: “Chastisement occurs
through the very things that causes bliss . . . , just as a man of
cold temperament enjoys the heat of the sun, while a man of
hot temperament is tortured by it. In the last analysis, the very
thing that causes bliss causes pain.”40

In discussing the torments of hell, Muslim thinkers eventually

come back to the precedence of God’s Mercy over His Wrath.
The Names of Mercy in
the Quran outnumber the Names of Wrath by at least five to
one; the Name Vengeful does not occur as such, but only
once in verbal form, whereas its opposite, the Forgiving,
occurs about one hundred times. Considerations such as these
explain why the view that hell cannot be everlasting has
prevailed, even among exoteric theologians. For Ibn ʿArabī
and his followers, the precedence of God’s Mercy means that
the chastisement (ʿadhāb) of the infidels will one day turn
sweet (ʿadhb), even if they remain in hell forever.41

Death and the Barzakh

695
Long before Muslims began writing about an independent
“world of imagination” identified with the barzakh, the
community was well aware that “sleep is the brother of death”
(a saying normally cited as a ḥadīth). The Quran states, “God
takes their souls at the time of death, and that which has not
died in its sleep” (XXXIX, 42), and authorities such as the
Quran commentator al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143–44) could
argue that sleep and death were the same reality.42 The
science of dream interpretation is mentioned in the Quran
(e.g., XII, 44, 100) and was practiced by the Prophet. The vast
literature that developed on the subject shows that it has been
popular throughout Islamic history. Since the close
connection between sleep and death was affirmed from the
first, it is not surprising that the eschatological data came to
be “interpreted” following much the same principles that were
employed for dreams.

In dreams the imaginal faculty displays ideas in forms that

possess a “correspondence” or “affinity” (munāsabah) with
the underlying meaning or content. The task of the interpreter
is to understand the original meaning behind the form. His
task is made easier, of course, if the dream is “true” (ṣādiq)
and derives therefore not only from the dreaming subject but
also from the objective world of imagination outside and
beyond him. The Prophet himself said that a true dream is
“one-forty-sixth part of prophecy.”

Al-Ghazzālī points out that since sleep is the twin brother of

death, through it “we have gained an aptitude for
understanding certain states which we could not understand
through wakefulness.” He explains that the works of men
have “spirits” (arwāḥ) and “realities” (ḥaqāʾiq) that cannot be
perceived in this world but that appear after death, for in the

696
next world “Forms are subordinate to spirits and realities, so
everything seen there will be seen in a form appropriate to its
reality.”43 In the same way, the forms we see in dreams
correspond closely to their meanings, as can be understood
from an account of the famous dream interpreter Ibn Sīrīn (d.
early second/eighth century). When asked about a man who
had dreamed he was
sealing the mouths and private parts of people with a seal
ring, he explained, correctly, that the man must be a muezzin
who calls people to prayer in the early morning of Ramaḍān
(thus announcing to them that they must commence the fast).
Al-Ghazzālī explains:

When this man became separated somewhat from the world of corporeal
sensation, the spirit of his work was unveiled to him. But since he was still in
the world of imagination (ʿālam al-takhayyul)—for a dreamer never ceases to
imagine things—his imaginal faculty veiled the spirit [of his work] in an
imaginal likeness (mithāl mutakhayyal), i.e., the seal-ring and the sealing.
This likeness reveals the spirit of his work more clearly than the call to prayer
itself, since the World of Dreams is nearer than this lower world to the next
world.44

“What is really strange,” remarks al-Ghazzālī, “is that you

have been shown so many examples of the Resurrection in
sleep, yet you remain totally oblivious of its reality.”45 So
dreams provide a key to understanding the Islamic teachings
concerning the next world. For example, the Prophet
describes the reality of the present world by saying that on the
Day of Resurrection it will be brought in the form of an ugly
old woman, and everyone who sees her will say: “We seek
refuge from you in God.” Then they will be told, “This is the
world that you spent so much effort in trying to acquire.”46
Again, the Prophet speaks of the infidel in his grave being
tormented by ninety-nine tinnīn, each of which is ninety-nine

697
serpents with nine heads. These represent the infidel’s evil
qualities, such as pride, hypocrisy, envy, and greed, while the
exact numbers refer to the fact that such qualities can be
divided into a limited number of general principles possessing
subdivisions (as can be observed, for example, in the science
of ethics). “It is these qualities which are the mortal sins; they
themselves are transformed into scorpions and serpents.”47

Al-Ghazzālī’s conclusion is clear, especially since it is

repeated in numerous texts on eschatology over the centuries:
In death, man finds nothing but his own attributes, no longer
veiled by the corporeal body but revealing themselves to him
in forms appropriate to his new abode. “The soul’s connection
to the body veils it from the perception of the realities of
things, while death removes the veil: ‘We have now removed
from thee thy covering, so thy sight today is piercing’ (Quran
L, 22).”48 Man awakens to the realities of his own words,
acts, and moral qualities; his moral substance, whether good
or evil, assumes corporeal shape. Everything that had been
hidden in the lower world becomes outwardly manifest. This
is why, in the words of al-Ṭūsī, “Whoever is afraid of natural
death is afraid of the concomitant of his own essence and the
completion of his own quiddity.”49 Rūmī makes the same
point:

If you fear and flee from death, you fear yourself, Oh friend. Take heed!

It is your own ugly face, not the face of death. Your spirit is like a tree, and
death its leaves.50

According to al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), the barzakh is a world

where the outward becomes inward and the inward outward.
It is referred to as follows:

698
“The day every soul shall find what it has done of good brought forward, and
what it has done of evil; it will wish there were a far space between it and that
day” (III, 30). Every attribute that dominated over man in this world will
manifest itself to him in the barzakh in an appropriate form. . . . This is the
meaning of the Prophet’s words, “Men will be mustered on the Day of
Resurrection in keeping with their intentions.”51

The Persian poet Sanāʾī expresses these ideas as follows:

When they lift the veil of sensory perception from your eyes, if you are an
infidel you will find scorching hell,

if a man of faith the Garden.

Your heaven and hell are within yourself: Look inside!

See furnaces in your liver, gardens in your heart.52

Rūmī asks:

How many children of your thoughts will you see in the grave,

all surrounding your soul crying, “Papa!”?

Your good thoughts give birth to youths and houris;

your ugly thoughts give birth to great demons.53

Such ideas explain the eschatological significance of these

famous lines of Rūmī:

You are your thought, brother, the rest of you is bones and fiber.

If you think of roses, you are a rosegarden; if you think of thorns, you are
fuel for the furnace.54

ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī (d. 525/1131) explains that all

vision of the spiritual world or of the next world is based on
tamaththul, “the display of images (mithāl).” Thus, according

699
to the Quran, Gabriel appeared to Mary as “a man without
fault” through tamaththul (XIX, 17). On this basis we can
understand the questioning of the dead by the angels Munkar
and Nakīr:

It takes place within yourself. Those of our contemporaries who are veiled
from the truth have come up with this problem: How can two angels, in one
instant, visit a thousand different individuals? [They conclude that] one must
accept this as an article of faith [since it contradicts reason]. But in this
connection Ibn Sīnā—God have mercy on him—provided a world of
explanation in two sentences: “Munkar is his evil deeds, and Nakīr his good
deeds.” . . . The ego is the mirror of blameworthy qualities, and the intellect
and heart are the mirror of praiseworthy qualities. When a man looks, he sees
his own attributes revealing themselves in images (tamaththul-garī kunad).
His own existence is his torment, though he thinks someone else is
tormenting him. . . . If you want to hear the Prophet himself say this, listen
when he speaks of the chastisements of the grave: “They are only your works
given back to you.”55

The Lesser Resurrection

The experience of death for the microcosm corresponds to the

coming of the Hour for the macrocosm. Hence the Quranic
accounts of the end of the world can also be understood as
referring to the death of the individual. Many Quranic
commentators, such as ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī (d. 730/1330)
in his famous taʾwīl, or “esoteric interpretation,” understand
verses referring to the resurrection in such terms. Al-Ghazzālī
had already brought this type of commentary under the
protective wing of mainstream Islam in his Ihyāʾ: “I mean by
‘Lesser Resurrection’ the state of death, for the Prophet—God
bless him and give him peace—said, ‘He who has died has
undergone his resurrection.’” He explains that all the terms
that refer to the Greater Resurrection have their equal (naẓīr)
in the Lesser Resurrection. Thus, the earth corresponds to the

700
body, mountains to bones, the sky to the head, the sun to the
heart, the stars to the senses, grass to hair, trees to limbs, etc.

So when the elements of your body are destroyed through death, “The earth
will be shaken with a mighty shaking” (XCIX, 1); when the bones are
separated from the flesh, “The earth and the mountains will be lifted up and
crushed with a single blow” (LXIX, 14); when the bones decay, “The
mountains will be scattered like ashes” (LXXVII, 10); when your heart is
darkened through death, “The sun will be darkened” (LXXXI, 1); when your
hearing, sight, and other senses cease to work, “The stars will be thrown
down” (LXXXI, 2); when your brain is split, “The sky will be split asunder”
(LV, 37). . . . . The instant you die, the Lesser Resurrection will take place for
you; nevertheless, you will not miss anything of the Greater Resurrection.56

Bābā Ṭāhir of Hamadān (fifth/eleventh century) employs a

similar method of interpretation to explain the events that
follow the resurrection:

People are now standing on the Path though they are unaware, for in the eyes
of the Sufis, this world is the next world. In the hereafter there will be a Path,
a Balance, a Garden, and a Fire. The Path of the Sufis in this world is their
way, which is “sharper than a sword.” Their Balances are their hearts,
which are the best of all balances; their Garden is the turning of their hearts
[toward God], and their Fire is the turning of their hearts away [from Him].57

701
35. “The Mirāj of the Prophet,” Khamsah Nizami.

702
In discussing the Lesser and Greater Resurrections,
al-Qūnawī adds the Greatest Resurrection (qiyāmat-i ʿuzmā),
which he defines as “the Arrival (wuṣūl) achieved by the
gnostic, the moment when the two created worlds are erased
and obliterated by the light of Unity, so that nothing remains
but the Living, the Self-Subsistent.”58 ʿAzīz al-Dīn Nasafī
speaks of lesser, intermediate, greater, and greatest
resurrections and identifies them with four stages of human
life: birth, the acquisition of faith, perfection in knowledge,
and perfection in sanctity.59 Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. after
787/1385), a follower of Ibn ʿArabī who is careful to support
his views with the sayings of the Shīʿite Imams, details
several kinds of resurrection, as indicated in the
accompanying table.60

KINDS OF RESURRECTION

according to Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī

703
Al-Jīlī interprets the events that take place at the end of time
in terms of the voluntary death or Greatest Resurrection
experienced by the spiritual traveler. According to a ḥadīth,
Gog and Magog will appear on the earth, eating its fruits and
drinking its seas; once they are slain, the earth will revive. In
the same way, the ego’s agitation and corrupt thoughts take
possession of the earth of man’s heart, eat its fruits, and drink
its seas, so that no trace of spiritual knowledge can appear.
Then God’s angels annihilate these satanic whisperings with
sciences from God: the earth is revived and it gives abundant
harvest. This is a mark of man’s gaining proximity to God. As

704
for the beast of the earth, it will come to tell the earth’s
inhabitants about the truth of the promises concerning the
resurrection. In the same way, the traveler reaches a stage of
unveiling where he comes to understand the inward mysteries
of religion; this is a favor from God, so that “the troops of his
faith will not retreat before the armies of the continuing veil.”
Just as the people will not be convinced of the coming of the
Hour until the appearance of the beast, so the gnostic will not
understand all the requisites of Divinity until the spirit
appears from out of the earth of his bodily nature. The
conflict between al-Dajjāl and Jesus refers to the battle
between the ego and the spirit, while the appearance of the
Mahdī alludes to man’s becoming “the Possessor of
Equilibrium at the pinnacle of every perfection.” Finally, the
rising of the sun from the west marks the realization of the
ultimate human perfection.61

The Greater Resurrection

In discussing Quran L, 22, the commentator Rashīd al-Dīn

Maybudī (early sixth/twelfth century) points out that the
world of the barzakh has been compared to the womb. Ibn
ʿArabī expands on this idea, explaining that after death man
begins to reap the fruit of his life in this world; “having
undergone various stages of development, he is born on the
Day of Resurrection.”62 The imaginal bodies that men
possess in the barzakh are like lamps within which the spirit
is lit. Then “the Trumpet shall be blown, and whosoever is in
the heavens and whosoever is in the earth shall swoon, save
whom God wills” (XXXIX, 68). At this first blast on the
trumpet, the lamps will be extinguished and transferred into
resurrection bodies. “Then it shall be blown again, and lo,
they shall stand beholding” (XXXIX, 68); that is, once again

705
the lamps will be lit. Some of those newly awakened will ask,
“Who roused us out of our sleeping place?” (XXXVI, 52).
People will gradually forget their situation in the barzakh and
imagine that it had been a dream, even though, when they
first entered the barzakh, that had been an awakening
compared with their life in the world.63 The resurrection is far
more real
and intense than the barzakh, just as the latter is more real
than the world. This is why, after death, the people of Pharaoh
are “exposed morning and evening” to the fire (XL, 45), but
they do not enter into it, since they are still in the barzakh.
But “on the day when the Hour is come: ‘Admit the people of
Pharaoh into the more intense chastisement’” (XL, 46).64

Although most theologians maintained that the resurrection

body would be the same body as that which existed in the
world, al-Ghazzālī among others points out that even this
earthly body does not stay the same, since it constantly
changes throughout life. The truth of the matter is that “the
body is only a mount; though the horse should change, the
rider stays the same.”65 Najm al-Dīn Rāzī suggests that the
difference between the earthly body and the resurrection body
lies in its degree of “subtlety” (laṭāfah). In both cases the
body belongs to the realm of nature and is therefore
compounded of the four elements; but in this world earth and
water predominate, whereas in the next world fire and air
predominate. Then, “when the form is subtle and luminous, it
no longer interferes with the spirit.” So on that day people
will display outwardly the realities that are today latent in
their hearts.66

As already indicated, Mullā Ṣadrā holds that the resurrection

body is identical with the earthly body in “form.” Ibn ʿArabī

706
and his followers speak of a “sensory” resurrection at the
level of “nature,” that is, within the domain of the four
elements, but the ontological level of hell will correspond to
that of this lower world, with its multiplicity and
disequilibrium. Al-Qūnawī explains that the people of
wretchedness will meet all their thoughts, knowledge, states,
and works in forms appropriate to their debased ontological
level, while the spiritual dimensions of these things will
depart from them. In contrast, the thoughts, states, and works
of the people of felicity will be transformed into spiritual
entities, while their resurrection bodies will subsist inside
themselves. In this world, a person’s inward reality is
infinitely malleable and “nondelimited” (muṭlaq), whereas his
outward form and acts are defined and determined. In
paradise, “the property of non-delimitation will pertain to the
outward dimension, while the property of delimitation will
belong to the inward.”67

If it is true that the inward state of man is revealed at the

Lesser Resurrection, this is even more true at the Greater
Resurrection, the day when “that which is in the breasts is
brought out” (C, 10) and “secrets are divulged” (LXXXVI, 9).
In the words of Sanāʾī,

If you die with an ugly character, you will be resurrected in the form of a
beast. . . .

When meaning comes out of the house into the street, your face will be
impressed with what is in your heart.

For the sake of display, the Originator of Qualities will put potentiality on the
inside and actuality on the outside.68

The result of not having realized “justice” and “equilibrium”

in this world becomes manifest in the very form in which the

707
resurrection body appears. Al-Ghazzālī had spoken of the
“pig” and the “dog” within man, that is, the faculties of
beastliness or “concupiscence” (shahwah) and predatoriness
or “irascibility” (ghaḍab), which must be overcome by the
intellect. Al-Qūnawī among others states that man will
assume corporeal shape in the barzakh according to the
character that dominated over him in this world. Thus, “if
concupiscence dominated, he will appear in the form of a pig,
and if irascibility dominated, he will appear as a dog.”69

According to Rūmī,

There are thousands of wolves and pigs in our existence, good and evil, fair
and foul.

Man’s properties are determined by the trait that predominates: If gold is

more than copper, then he is gold.

Of necessity you will be given form at the Resurrection in accordance with

the character that predominates in your existence.70

Among the philosophers, al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) had

interpreted certain teachings of Plato in similar terms, and
Shīʿite thinkers like Ibn Abī Jumhūr (d. 901/1494) and
especially Mullā Ṣadrā develop this mode of interpretation in
detail, citing many Quranic verses and ḥadīths in support of
their arguments. Mullā Ṣadrā holds that the very essences of
human souls will diverge in the hereafter and that they will
become many species, falling into four main genera
(corresponding to al-Ghazzālī’s pig, dog, devil, and wise
man). This is not transmigration (tanāsukh), say our authors,
since it does not take place in this world, but on another plane
of existence.71

708
Though the theologians and most Sufis did not question the
reality of the bodily resurrection, the early philosophers were
inclined to be skeptical, since they could find no rational
proofs outside revelation to support it. Nonetheless, they
considered the survival of the soul a foregone conclusion,
since it belongs by nature to the domain of disengaged and
incorruptible spiritual substances; then its bliss is for it to
contemplate the highest realities and God Himself. According
to Ibn Sīnā, if the soul attains to perfection, after death it will
become connected to the Divine and be plunged into true
pleasure. Imperfect souls experience various degrees of
pleasure or pain, according to the degree to which they have
become detached from the body or remained immersed in the
world. Concerning bodily resurrection, Ibn Sīnā anticipates
later developments in Islamic thought by suggesting
that certain souls may experience the events described in the
Quran and the Ḥadīth because these descriptions had shaped
their imaginal faculties; they will then perceive what they had
believed they would perceive. After all, he says, imaginal
forms are stronger than sensory forms, as can be observed in
dreams. But the images contemplated in the next world are
more stable than those seen in dreams because the body no
longer interferes with perception.72

Ibn Sīnā also suggests that the Islamic teachings about bodily
resurrection should be interpreted allegorically. Islam is
addressed to all men, not just philosophers and sages, so it has
to speak a language understood by everyone, that of corporeal
realities. “Our Prophet—God bless him and give him
peace—perfected this mode of explanation such that nothing
can be added to it.” Ibn Sīnā then turns the tables on those
Christian missionaries who were later to criticize Islam for its
“sensual” descriptions of paradise. He says that the Christians

709
accept the bodily resurrection but fail to describe the various
forms of corporeal ease and punishment; instead they suggest
that men will be like angels. But “most people think—though
they do not dare say so because of their fear [of the religious
law]—that angels are miserable creatures who have no ease or
joy. They do not eat, drink, or have sexual intercourse, and
they occupy themselves constantly with unrequited worship.
The common people think this way since they cannot begin to
understand the nature of true felicity and spiritual joy.”73

Many Sufis agreed that the Quranic data need not be taken
literally. Sulṭān Walad writes:

The true nature of meanings (maʿānī) cannot be expressed in words; they do

not resemble anything, nor are they opposed to anything. But something has
to be said in keeping with the understandings of people so that they will
strive to reach those meanings. In the same way, one explains to a child the
pleasure of kissing by comparing a woman’s lips to sugar. . . . But in fact,
what is the relationship between lips and sugar? There is no resemblance at
all. Likewise God explains the Garden in terms of houris, castles, trees, and
rivers in order that it may be understood in these terms. But in fact, how
should the Garden resemble such things? For they are transitory, while it is
eternal. What relation is there between the transitory and the eternal?74

Al-Ghazzālī displays the concern of the theologian to affirm

the bodily nature of the resurrection, but he reminds us that
the soul will also be resurrected, so spiritual delights and
torments must also be taken into account. The Quran refers to
them in such verses as, “What shall teach you about the
Crusher? The kindled Fire of God, roaring over the hearts”
(CIV, 5–7). Al-Ghazzālī divides this spiritual fire into three
kinds: (1) the fire of separation from worldly desires, which is
particularly strong at death and in the
barzakh; (2) the fire of shame and disgrace, which overcomes
man at the resurrection when all his deeds are displayed; (3)

710
the fire of regret over being deprived of the vision of God,
which is the lasting torment of hell.75

All the inhabitants of the garden will possess “bodies,” but

their spirits will dwell in different degrees of proximity to
God. Already at the time of the Prophet, there are references
to eight levels and one hundred degrees of paradise; many
authorities rank the levels in accordance with different names
employed in the Quran.76 The Quran distinguishes between
the companions of the right (as opposed to the companions of
the left in hell) and the Foremost or “Those Brought Nigh”
(LVI, 8–10). In al-Qūnawī’s words, “The Garden, houris,
castles, fowl, and sweetmeats belong to the Companions of
the Right; theophany (tajallī), true knowledge, and Encounter
belong to Those Brought Nigh.”77 According to some
accounts, the vision of God guaranteed to the faithful in
several ḥadīths and alluded to in the Quran (e.g., LXXV, 23)
will take place at the Dune of White Musk; Ibn ʿArabī states
that all of the people of the garden will take stations there, “in
keeping with their degrees of knowledge of God, not the
degree of their works; for works pertain to the bliss of the
Garden, not to the contemplation of the All-Merciful.”78 In
this context many authorities cite the ḥadīth “I have prepared
for My righteous servants what eye has not seen, nor ear has
heard, nor has entered the heart of any man . . . ‘No soul
knows what is laid up for them secretly’ (Quran XXXII, 17)”;
or again, “God has a Garden in which are no houris, castles,
milk, or honey; our Lord shows Himself in theophany,
laughing (ḍāḥik)”

According to Bāyazīd Basṭāmī (d. ca. 261/874), all the

faithful will see God once in the garden, but after that only
the elect will continue to see Him. For, according to the

711
well-known ḥadīth, “in the Garden is a market where there is
no buying or selling, only the forms of men and women;
when a man desires a form, he enters into it.” Those who
enter a form, says Bāyazīd, will never again go to visit God:
“God misleads you in this life as to the market, and also in the
next; you will always be enslaved to the market.”79 Ibn
ʿArabī and his followers explain the market of the garden as a
branch of the world of nondelimited imagination: from it the
forms of the felicitous will be constantly renewed.80

The various realities that will be observed after the

resurrection, such as the balance, the path, the Book, and the
pool, are interpreted in many ways. Imam Jaʿfar had already
explained that the balance is in fact the prophets and their
appointed heirs (i.e., the Imams). Al-Ghazzālī points out that
a “balance” is “that which distinguishes more from less”;
even in this world balances take many forms, so there is no
reason to suppose that the balance
in the next world will necessarily resemble anything we know
here. ʿAyn al-Quḍāt says that the balance is the human
intellect; al-Qūnawī that it is the personification in imaginal
form of the Divine Attribute of Justice; and ʿAzīz al-Dīn
Nasafī that it is man’s very existence, the two pans being his
receptivity toward good and evil.81 Analogous explanations
of other eschatological realities can be found in the works of
these and many other figures. In his Wisdom of the Throne
Mullā Ṣadrā makes use of the whole tradition of Islamic
eschatology in offering several interpretations for each
symbol.82

To sum up the Islamic teachings, one can recall that man,

through the very fact that he was created upon the Form of the
All-Merciful, has been given God’s Trust: “We offered the

712
Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they
refused to carry it and were afraid of it; and man carried it”
(XXXIII, 72). The role of Islam is to guide man on the
straight path of justice and equilibrium, so that he can carry
the Trust and fulfill his rightful function as God’s vicegerent.
But, the above verse continues, man is “sinful, very foolish”
to the extent that he fails to live up to his Divine Form.
Hence, through the very majesty of his freedom and
responsibility, he is able to cut himself off from the effusion
of Mercy and Light that fills the universe. Whether he
experiences God’s Mercy or Wrath, the next stages of his
existence depend upon his own choice.

Notes

1. Saʿad al-Dīn Taftāzānī, Sharḥ al-ʿaqāʾid al-nasafiyyah

(Delhi: Kutubkhāna-yi Rashīdiyyah, n.d.) 76–82, 123; see the
translation in E. E. Elder, A Commentary on the Creed of
Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950) 99, 165.

2. Al-Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn IV.8.2 (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat

al-ʿĀmirat al-Sharafiyyah, 1326/1908) 4:370.

3. Kāshānī, Miṣbāḥ al-hidāyah, ed. J. Humāʾī (Tehran:

Chāpkhāna-yi Majlis, 1325/1946) 49.

4. Al-Ghazzālī, Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat, ed. A. Ārām (Tehran:

Markazī, 1319/1940) 98.

5. Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Arbaʿīn, ed. M. M. Abuʾl-ʿAlāʾ (Cairo:

Maktabat al-Jundī, 1970) 275.

713
6. Rāzī, Mirṣād ad-ʿibād, trans. H. Algar, The Path of God’s
Bondsmen from Origin to Return (Delmar, NY: Caravan
Books, 1982) 387–93.

7. Jāmī, Haft awrang, ed. M. Mudarrisī Gīlānī (Tehran:

Kitābfurūshī-yi Saʿdī, 1337/1958) 109.

8. Mullā Ṣadrā, Al-Asfār (Tehran, 1282/1865–66) 857.13.

9. Rāzī, Path, p. 363, with minor changes.

10. Nasafī, Zubdat al-ḥaqāʾiq, appended to Jāmī, Ashiʿ ʿat

al-lamaʿāt, ed. H. Rabbānī (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi
ʿIlmiyya-yi Ḥāmidī, 1352/1973) 325–27.

11. Ibn Sīnā, Al-Najāh (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿādah, 1938)

293; cf. A. J. Arberry’s translation of this passage in
Avicenna, On Theology (London: John Murray, 1951) 67.

12. F. Meier, “The Problem of Nature in the Esoteric Monism

of Islam,” in Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos
Yearbooks, trans. R. Manheim (Bollingen Series 30.1;
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954) 195.

13. Sanāʾī, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqah, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī

(Tehran: Sipihr, 1329/1950) 382.

14. Rūmī, Fīhi mā fīhi, ed. B. Furūzānfar (Tehran: Amīr

Kabīr, 1348/1969) 79; cf. A. J. Arberry, trans., Discourses of
Rumi (London: John Murray, 1961) 89; see also W. C.
Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of
Rumi (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1983) 206–12.

714
15. Sulṭān Walad, Walad-nāmah, ed. J. Humāʾī (Tehran:
Iqbāl, 1316/1937) 261.

16. Rūmī, Kulliyyāt-i Shams yā dīwān-i kabīr, ed. B.

Furūzānfar (Tehran: University of Tehran, 1336–46/1957–67)
verse 6400.

17. Ibn ʿArabī, Tarjumān al-ashwāq, trans. R. A. Nicholson

(London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1911) 67.

18. Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al ḥikam, ed. A. ʿAfīfī (Beirut: Dār

al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1946) 121; cf. The Bezels of Wisdom,
trans. R. W. J. Austin (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980) 149.

19. Mullā Ṣadrā, The Wisdom of the Throne, trans. J. W.

Morris (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981)
148–49.

20. S. J. Āshtiyānī, Sharḥ bar zād al-musāfir-i Mullā Ṣadrā:

Maʿād-i jismānī (2nd ed.; Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy
of Philosophy, 1359/1980) 218, 244.

21. F. Rahman, Major Themes of the Qurʾān (Minneapolis

and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980) 17, 112.

22. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyyah (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir,

n.d.) vol. 2, 627.27.

23. Ibid., vol. 3, 187–88; cf. Chittick, Sufi Path, 71–72.

24. Al-Asfār, 853.15.

25. See Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of the Throne, 161ff.

715
26. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt, vol. 3, 361.5.

27. Cf. Jāmī, Naqd al-nuṣūṣ, ed. W. C. Chittick (Tehran:

Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977) 56–57.

28. Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of the Throne, 163.

29. Mullā Ṣadrā, Al-Asfār, 853.23.

30. Al-Ṭūsī, The Nasirean Ethics, trans. G. M. Wickens

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1964) 95; cf. Avicenna, On
Theology, 72; al-Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ III.2.2, 3,39–40.

31. Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Maḍnūn bihi ʿalā ghayr ahlihi, in

Al-Quṣūr al-ʿawālī min rasāʾil al-Imām al-Ghazzālī (Cairo:
Maktabat al-Jundī, 1970) 2:160.

32. R. J. McCarthy, Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated

Translation of al-Ghazālī’s al-Munqidh min al-Dalāl and
other Relevant Works of al-Ghazālī (Boston: Twayne, 1980)
377; cf. Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of the Throne, 146.

33. McCarthy, Freedom, 349; Ninety-nine Names of God,

trans. R. Stade (Ibadan: Daystar Press, 1970) 12.

34. Al-Farghānī, Muntahaʾl-madārik (Cairo: ʿAbd al-Raḥīm

al-Bukhārī, 1293/1876) 2:82; idem, Mashāriq al-darārī, ed.
S. J. Āshtiyānī (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of
Philosophy, 1357/1978) 467–68. Concerning the name
al-Raḥīm, note the Quranic distinction, pointed out by Ibn
ʿArabī, between the “mercy of gratuitous gift,” given to all
creatures, and the “mercy of prescription,” given to the
faithful; see W. C. Chittick, “Ibn ʿArabī’s Own Summary of

716
the Fuṣūṣ,” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society 1
(1982) 62.

35. Al-Jīlī, Al-Insān al-kāmil, chap. 58 (Cairo: Muḥammad

ʿAlī Ṣabīḥ, 1963) 2:30.

36. Abū Ḥanīfah, Wasiyyah, article 7; cf. A. J. Wensinck, The

Muslim Creed (London: Frank Cass, 1932) 126, 142ff.

37. Chittick, “Ibn ʿArabī’s Own Summary,” 61.

38. Al-Niffarī, The Mawāqif and Mukhāṭabāt, ed. A. J.

Arberry (London: Luzac, 1935): Mukhāṭabāt 27.10; Mawāqif,
67.65–70, 17.6.

39. F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, trans. D. M. Matheson

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1979) 71, 73.

40. Al-Niffarī, Mawāqif 1.21; Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt

al-makkiyyah, ed. ʿU. Yaḥyā (Cairo: al-Hayʾat al-Miṣriyyat
al-ʿĀmmat liʾl-Kitāb, 1975) 4:389.

41. J. I. Smith and Y. Y. Haddad, The Islamic Understanding

of Death and Resurrection (Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1981) 95; Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, chap.
7; Al-Futūḥāt, ed. Yaḥyā, 3:67; Beirut ed., vol. 3, 315.-3,
328.-9, 389.-14.

42. J. I. Smith, “The Understanding of Nafs and Rūḥ in

Contemporary Muslim Considerations of the Nature of Sleep
and Death,” The Muslim World 69 (1979) 153–54.

717
43. Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Maḍnūn, 166 (cf. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt,
Beirut ed., vol. 3, 198.23); idem, Kīmiyā, 93 (cf. Al-Arbaʿīn,
291).

44. Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Arbaʿīn, 290; cf. Kīmiyā, 93–94; Iḥyāʾ

IV. 10.8, 4, 362.

45. Al-Ghazzālī, Kīmiyā, 94.

46. Ibid., 94; Al-Arbaʿīn, 291.

47. Al-Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ IV.10.7, 4, 358–59; Kīmiyā, 85;

Al-Arbaʿīn, 282.

48. Al-Ghazzālī, Al-Maḍnūn, 158.

49. Al-Ṭūsī, Nasirean Ethics, 138.

50. Rūmī, Mathnawī, ed. R. A. Nicholson (London: Luzac,

1925–40) book 3, vv. 3441–42.

51. Al-Qūnawī, Tabṣirat al-mubtadī, 3.3, trans. W. C.

Chittick, forthcoming.

52. Sanāʾī, Dīwān, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī (Tehran: Ibn Sīnā,

1341/1962) 708.

53. Rūmī, Kulliyyāt, vv. 20435–36; cf. W. C. Chittick, Sufi

Path, 101–7.

54. Rūmī, Mathnawī, book 2, vv. 277–78.

718
55. ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamhīdāt, ed. ʿA. ʿUsayrān in
Muṣannafāt-i ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī (Tehran: Tehran
University, 1341/1962) 287, 289. For a good summary of this
whole discussion, see Lāhījī (d. 912/1506–7), Sharḥ-i
Gulshan-i rāz, ed. K. Samīʿī (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi
Maḥmūdī, 1337/1958) 521–27.

56. Al-Ghazzālī, Iḥyāʾ IV.2.1, 4, 46–47.

57. J. Maqṣūd, Sharḥ-i aḥwāl wa āthār wa du-baytīhā-yi

Bābā Ṭāhir ʿUryān (Tehran: Anjuman-i Āthār-i Millī, 1354/
1975) 403.

58. Al-Qūnawī, Tabṣirat al-mubtadī, 3.3.

59. Nasafī, Kashf al-ḥaqāʾ iq, ed. A. Mahdawī Dāmghānī

(Tehran: Bungāh-i Tarjamah wa Nashr-i Kitāb, 1344/1965)
211.

60. Āmulī, Asrār al-sharīʿah wa aṭwār al-ṭarīqah wa anwār

al-ḥaqīqah, ed. M. Khwājawī (Tehran: Muʾassasa-yi
Muṭālaʿāt wa Taḥqīqāt-i Farhangī, 1362/1983) 104–36.

61. Al-Jīlī, Al-Insān al-kāmil, chap. 61; 2:49–52.

62. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt, Beirut ed., vol. 3, 250.19.

63. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt, ed. Yaḥyā, 4:456–67.

64. Ibid., 4:424.

65. Al-Ghazzālī, Kīmiyā, 80.

719
66. Rāzī, Path, 391–92.

67. Al-Qūnawī, Al-Nafaḥāt al-ilāhiyyah (Tehran: Aḥmad

Shīrāzī, 1316/1898–99) 115.

68. Sanāʾī, Ḥadīqah, 380.

69. Al-Qūnawī, Tabṣirat al-mubtadī, 3.3.

70. Rūmī, Mathnawī, book 2, vv. 277–78.

71. M. Mahdi, Alfarabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle

(New York: Free Press of
Glencoe, 1962) 64; Ibn Abī Jumhūr, Al-Mujlī (Tehran:
Aḥmad Shīrāzī, 1329/1911) 506–7; Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of
the Throne, 145–47; al-Qūnawī, Al-Nafaḥāt, 116; Āshtiyānī,
Sharḥ bar zād al-musāfir, 56, 122–23, 128.

72. Ibn Sīnā, On Theology, 69ff.; quotations from 75; cf.

Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, in Oeuvres philosophiques et
mystiques, ed. H. Corbin (Tehran and Paris: Institut
Franco-Iranien, 1952) 229ff.

73. Ibn Sīnā, Risālah aḍḥawiyyah fī amr ai-maʿād, ed. S.

Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1949) 60–62; cf.
Averroes’ Tahāfut al-tahāfut, trans. S. van den Bergh
(London: Luzac, 1969) 1:361.

74. Sulṭān Walad, Walad-nāmah, 298.

75. Al-Ghazzālī, Kīmiyā, 98, 91–96; al-Arbaʿīn, 288–97.

720
76. See the ḥadīths in Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ, trans. J. Robson
(Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1963–65) 1197, 1200; cf. Al-Kisāʾī’s
account in A Reader on Islam, ed. A. Jeffery (The Hague:
Mouton, 1962) 172.

77. Al-Qūnawī, Tabṣirat al-mubtadī, 3.3.

78. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt, ed. Yaḥyā, 5:77.

79. L. Massignon, The Passion of al-Ḥallāj: Mystic and

Martyr of Islam, trans. H. Mason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1982) 3:166–67.

80. Ibn ʿArabī, Al-Futūḥāt, Beirut ed., vol. 2, 628.3;

al-Qūnawī, Al-Nuṣūṣ, appended to al-Kāshānī, Sharḥ manāzil
al-sāʾ irīn (Tehran: Ebrāhīm Lārījānī, 1315/1897–98) 292.

81. Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (2nd ed.; Beirut: Muʾassasat

al-Wafāʾ, 1983) 7:249; al-Ghazzālī, Al-Maḍnūn, 159; ʿAyn
al-Quḍāt, Tamhīdāt, 290; al-Qūnawī, letter to a disciple, MS
1633 in the Konya Mevlana Müzesi, fol. 115; Nasafī, Kashf
al-ḥaqāʾ iq, 184; cf. Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of the Throne,
212–14.

82. Mullā Ṣadrā, Wisdom of the Throne, 180ff.

721
722
Glossary

ʿabd. Slave, servant, the state in which man should be before

God, according to Islam.

ʿabd Allāh. The servant of God, also one of the names of the
Prophet.

adab. Courtesy, culture, correct comportment.

ʿadālah. Justice.

ādam-i rūḥānī. Spiritual Adam, man’s archetype, according to

Ismāʿīlī teachings.

ʿadhāb. Suffering and pain usually associated with the

posthumous states of those who have committed sin.

ʿādil. Just, fair, a Divine Name, God being the Just, al-ʿĀdil.

al-ʿAfū. The Forgiver, a Divine Name.

al-Aḥad. The One, a Divine Name.

aḥadiyyah. Oneness, the state in which all of God’s Names

and Qualities are one with His Essence.

ʿahd. Covenant, agreement, promise.

723
ahl al-bayt. “People of the household,” a term used in Shīʿism
to refer to the family of the Prophet such as Fāṭimah, ʿAlī,
their sons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn and their descendants.

ahl al-sunnah. The people who follow the traditions of the

Prophet, constituting the majority who are usually referred to
as Sunnis.

ākhirah. The next world, the world of resurrection and

eschatological realities.

akhlāq. Ethics and also character.

ʿālam al-ghayb. The invisible world, the spiritual world.

ʿālam al-ibdāʿ. The world of origination used in Ismāʿīlī

cosmology to refer to the highest level of the cosmos.

ʿālam al-mithāl. The world of similitude, usually identified

with the imaginal world.

ʿālam al-takhayyul. The imaginal world, standing between the

physical and the purely intelligible worlds.

al-ʿAlīm. The Knower, a Divine Name.

Allāhu akbar. “God is the greatest” the “motto” of Islam.

ʿamal (pl. aʿmāl). Act, understood both in the ordinary and in

the religious sense.

724
amānah. The trust that God has placed upon man’s shoulders
by creating him in His image and giving him the freedom to
accept His Lordship through faith or to reject it.

amīr al-muʾminīn. Commander of the faithful, a title given in

Sunnism to the caliphs and in Shīʿsm only to ʿAlī ibn Abī
Ṭālib.

amr. Command, order.

al-amr biʾl-maʿrūf waʾl-nahy ʿan al-munkar. To order the

good and exhort against that which is forbidden, one of the
important precepts of nearly every school within Islam.

anṣār. Helpers, those in Medina who helped the Prophet in

establishing the first Islamic community after his migration
from Mecca to that city.

ʿaql. The intellect, also reason, at once metacosmic, cosmic,

and within the human microcosm.

al-ʿaql al-awwal. The First Intellect.

al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl. The Active Intellect.

ʿArafāt. The plain near Mecca where the pilgrims assemble

before the end of the rite of pilgrimage.

al-ʿarif biʾLlāh. The gnostic, he who knows by God

ʿArsh. The Divine Empyrean and Throne.

725
asās. The “foundation,” the interpreter of the inner meaning
of Revelation; a title given by the Ismaīʿīlis to ʿAlī.

aṣḥāb ḥall waʾl-ʿaqd. People of loosening and binding, a title

given to the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) who have the
authority to interpret the Divine Law.

ʿāshūrāʾ. The tenth day of Muḥarram, when Ḥusayn was

martyred.

al-asmāʾ waʾl-ṣifāt. The Names and Qualities or Attributes of

God.

ʿaṣr. Afternoon, the third time specified for the performance

of the daily prayers, between midday and sunset.

al-aʿyān al-thābitah. The “immutable archetypes” or fixed

“entities”; the essences of all things as they possess reality in
Divine Knowledge and before becoming existentiated.

āyah (pl. āyāt). Sign, symbol, or portent. The phenomena of

the created order both macrocosmic and microcosmic are
identified as “signs” of God. The verses of the Quran are also
called āyah.

āyat Allāh (pl. āyāt Allāh). Sign or portent of God. In Shīʿism

since the late thirteenth/nineteenth century the term has
become an honorary title for the highest religious dignitaries.

ʿayn al-yaqīn. Eye of certainty.

ʿazm. Determination.

726
balad al-amīn. The city or abode of peace and protection.

baqāʾ. Subsistence, the highest station in Sufism, in which the

soul subsists in God after experiencing annihilation (fanāʾ).

barakah. Grace or Divine Presence, which permeates the

universe and draws man back to God.

barzakh. Intermediate state, isthmus, the period between

death and resurrection.

basṭ. Expansion.

bāṭin. The inward, esoteric, or hidden aspect of a being,

doctrine, or religion.

bayʿah. Pact made between the head of the Islamic

community and leaders within the community, as well as the
initiatic pact made between the spiritual master and the
disciple. Both of these practices go back to the Prophet.

al-Dajjāl. The Antichrist.

dāʿī. Ismāʿīlī missionary.

dalīl (pl. dalāʾil). Argument, proof, guide.

dār al-islām. The land or abode of Islam.

daʿwā. Invitation to accept a religion or a particular school

within a religion; missionary activity associated in the
classical period especially with Ismāʿīlism.

727
dhākir. Invoker.

al-Dhāt. The Divine Essence or Ipseity.

dhawq. Taste, tasted knowledge, intuition.

dhikr Allāh. The invocation, remembrance, and mentioning of

the Name of Allah.

dhikr al-lisān. Invocation of the tongue.

dhikr al-qalb. Invocation of the heart.

dhikr al-ṣadr. Invocation of the chest in which the Divine

Name is invoked in a rhythmic and audible manner, often
accompanied by bodily movements.

dhikr al-sirr. Invocation of man’s secret and innermost self.

dīn. Religion, tradition.

dīn al-fiṭrah. The primordial religion which man carries at the

depth of his nature and with which Islam identifies itself.

al-dīn al-ḥanīf. The primal or primordial religion of

monotheism.

fajr. Dawn, daybreak, associated with the first time set for the
performance of the daily prayers.

falāḥ. Salvation, deliverance.

falak. Heavenly sphere, heaven, sky.

728
falsafah. Philosophy.

fanāʾ. Annihilation or extinction, a state in Sufism in which

the soul becomes annihilated before God.

al-fanāʾ fiʾl-Dhāt. Annihilation in the Divine Essence.

al-fanāʾ fiʾl-shaykh. Annihilation in the spiritual master.

faqīh (pl. fuqahāʾ). Jurisprudent, doctor of the Sacred Law

(Sharīʿah).

faqīr. A male Sufi disciple.

faqīrah. A female Sufi disciple.

faqr. Poverty, used in the religious context as spiritual

poverty and identified with the practice of Sufism.

farḍ. That which is obligatory upon a person according to the

dicta of the Sharīʿah.

farq. Separation from God.

fawātiḥ al-suwar. Letters that begin various chapters of the

Quran.

fiʿl (pl. afʿāl). Act.

fiṭrah. Primordial nature, original perfection.

al-Furqān. “Discernment,” “Criterion,” one of the names of

the Quran.

729
Ghadīr Khumm. A pool of water near Mecca where the
Prophet stopped after the last pilgrimage and, according to the
Shīʿites, chose ʿAlī as his successor.

al-Ghafūr. The Forgiver, a Divine Name.

al-Ghālib. The Victorious, a Name of God.

al-Ghanī. The Rich, a Divine Name.

ghulām (pl. ghilmān). Lad, servant.

ginān. Ismāʿīlī religious literature, often in the form of poetry

and of a popular nature making use of local languages of
India and often mixing Hindu mythology with Islamic
teachings.

ḥabīb. Friend, one of the titles of the Prophet, who was called
“the Friend of God,” Ḥabīb Allāh.

al-ḥaḍarāt al-ilāhiyyat al-khams. The five Divine Presences

which Ibn ʿArabī and certain members of his school consider
to constitute reality as such.

al-Hādī. The Guide, one of the Names of God.

ḥadīth (pl. aḥādīth). Saying of the Prophet of Islam. In

Shīʿism the term is used also for the sayings of one of the
twelve Imams, but a clear distinction is made between the
sayings of the Prophet and those of the Imams.

ḥadīth qudsū. “Sacred” ḥadīth, a saying of the Prophet in

which God speaks in the first person.

730
ḥaḍrat al-dhikr. Audible invocation of the Names of God in a
Sufi gathering usually accompanied by the rhythmic
movement of the body.

al-hāhūt. The Divine Essence or Ipseity.

ḥajj. Pilgrimage to the house of God in Mecca.

ḥakīm (pl. ḥukamāʾ). Sage, wise man, theosopher,

philosopher, physician.

al-ḥakīm al-mutaʾallih. Theosopher, theomorphic sage.

ḥāl (pl. aḥwāl). State, usually used in Sufism as spiritual state

or condition which the disciple experiences upon the path. It
is also used as state of ecstasy induced by music, poetry, or
any other form of beauty.

ḥaqīqah (pl. ḥaqāʾiq). Truth, essential reality, spiritual reality.

al-ḥaqīqat al-muḥammadiyyah. “The Muḥammadan Reality,”

identified with the inner nature of the Prophet as Logos.

al-Ḥaqq. The Truth, the Real, a Name of God.

ḥaqq al-yaqīn. Truth of certainty.

al-Ḥayy. A Divine Name: the Living.

hijrah. The migration of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina,

which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

ḥikmah. Wisdom; philosophy.

731
al-ḥikmat al-mashriqiyyah. “Oriental philosophy” or that
philosophy inclined more toward illumination and intuition
than ratiocination, which Ibn Sīnā tried to develop in the later
years of his life and which was completed by Suhrawardī in
his School of ishrāq or Illumination.

himmah. Spiritual will.

ḥizb. A litany chanted in a Sufi order.

ḥubb Allāh. The love of God.

al-Hudā. “Guidance,” one of the names of the Quran.

ḥujjah. Proof; in Shiʿism, the Imam.

Huwa. “He,” referring to the Essence of God; also the final

syllable of the Divine Name Allāh.

ʿibādah. Worship.

al-ʿibādāt al-ʿamaliyyah. Worship based on action.

al-ʿibādāt al-ʿilmiyyah. Worship based on knowledge.

ibdāʿ. Creation ex nihilo, or “origination”

Iblis. The devil.

ibn al-waqt. The “son of the moment,” a title that is often

given to the Sufis because they seek to live in the present, in
the eternal now.

732
ʿīd. A day of celebration and festivity, the most important in
the Islamic calendar being that at the end of Ramaḍān and the
termination of the rites of ḥajj to Mecca.

ifṭār. The meal taken at sunset at the end of a day of fasting.

iḥrām. The special two-piece white cloth worn by pilgrims

when they perform the ḥajj at Mecca.

iḥsān. Virtue and beauty, identified with the inner dimension

of Islam.

ijmāʿ. Consensus or agreement, a principle of certain schools

of Islamic Law, where it is usually used in reference to the
agreement of the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) about a legal
question not determined explicitly by the Quran and Ḥadīth.

ijtihād. Expressing an independent legal opinion based on

both intellectual and moral qualifications.

ikhlāṣ. Sincerity.

ikhwān. Brothers or brethren, usually used by members of a

Sufi order when referring to other members.

ʿilm. Knowledge, science.

ʿilm al-yaqīn. Knowledge of certainty.

imām, Imam. Literally, “he who stands before,” leader of

prayer, authority in religious sciences, caliph. In Shīʿism the
term is used in a special sense and refers to those descendants

733
of the Prophet who bear within themselves the “Prophetic
Light.”

īmān. Faith.

ʿimārah. Literally, “plenitude,” a form of Sufi dance in which

the Divine Name fills the human receptable completely.

insān. Human, implying the state of the human being with the
possibility of its full perfection rather than its earthly and
imperfect condition.

al-insān al-kāmil. The universal or perfect man, the human

being who has attained the fullness of the human state and has
become the perfect mirror, in which are reflected God’s
Names and Qualities.

inshād (pl. anāshīd). Recitation of poems and litanies in Sufi

gatherings.

inshirāḥ. Expansion, which the Quran identifies with the

gaining of faith and spiritual realization especially in
reference of the “expansion of the breast” (inshirāḥ al-ṣadr).

ʿishāʾ. Night, the fifth time specified for the performance of

the daily prayers and set from a certain period after sunset to
midnight or later.

ishārah (pl. ishārāt). Indication, allusion, directive.

ʿishq-i ilāhī. Divine Love.

ishrāq. Illumination.

734
islām. Surrender to the will of God.

ʿiṣmah. Inerrancy, a quality associated with prophets in

certain schools of Islamic theology and also with both the
prophets and the Imams in Shīʿism.

al-ism al-aʿẓam. The Supreme Name of God.

ism al-Dhāt. Name of the Essence, referring to those Divine

Names that pertain to the Essence of God and not His
Attributes or Actions.

al-ism al-jalālah. The “Name of Majesty,” i.e., Allāh.

al-ism al-mufrad. The “Unique Name” i.e., Allāh.

istiʿdād. Capability, preparedness, potentiality.

istighfār. Seeking pardon.

ithbāt. Affirmation.

ithnā ʿashariyyah. The Twelvers, referring to the most

numerous school in Shīʿism, which believes that there are
only Twelve Imams after the Prophet.

iʿtikāf. Seclusion, removing oneself from the crowd to devote

oneself to worship and spiritual practice.

ittiḥād. Union.

ittiḥād al-waqt. Bringing together all the moments of the day

simultaneously in order to examine and evaluate them.

735
ʿIzrāʾīl. The angel of death.

al-jabarūt. The archangelic world.

jabr. Coercion, predestination.

jafr. The science of the symbolic, numerical significance of

the letters of the Quran. This science is said traditionally to
have been first taught by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and is used
widely in many traditional sciences especially in the
commentary on the Quran.

jalāl. Majesty; also al-Jalīl, the Majestic, one of the Names of

God encompassing His aspect of Rigor.

jamʿ. Collectedness, reunification with God.

jamāl Beauty; also the Beautiful (al-Jamīl), one of the Names

of God encompassing His aspect of Mercy.

jannah. Paradise, the “Garden.”

jihād. Literally, “effort” or “exertion,” but usually translated

as “holy war.” Jihād in the widest sense means all action
performed to establish equilibrium in life according to the
norms of Islam.

al-jihād al-akbar. The greater jihād, referring to the battle

within man to overcome his passions and subdue his lower
nature.

736
al-jihād al-aṣghar. The “smaller holy war,” referring to any
external effort in the path of God and for the preservation of
religion.

jihād al-nafs. The battle against one’s passions.

jism (pl. ajsām). Body.

Kaʿbah. The house of God in Mecca, built, according to

Islamic belief, first by Adam, then by Abraham. It determines
the direction toward which Muslims pray and is also the site
to which Muslims make the pilgrimage (al-ḥajj).

kāfir. Infidel, the person who, having covered the truth, stands
against religion.

Kalām. Literally, “word.” One of the names of the Quran.

Later it became the name for theology or that discipline which
sought to defend the tenets of the faith through the use of
rational arguments.

al-Kalimah. The Word of God, also used in reference to the

Quran.

kamāl. Perfection.

karam. Generosity.

al-Karīm. The Generous, a Name of God.

kashf. Unveiling, intellectual intuition, discovery.

737
khalīfah rasūl Allāh. Vicegerent of the Messenger of God, the
title given to the caliphs who became heads of the Islamic
community after the death of the Prophet.

khalīfat Allāh. The vicegerent of God on earth, the title given

to Adam and his progeny in the Quran.

al-Khāliq. The Creator, a Divine Name.

khalwah. Spiritual retreat, which constitutes a central part of

the practice of Sufism.

khānaqāh. A Sufi center.

khawf. Fear, understood both in the ordinary sense and as the

fear of God.

khazīnah (pl. khazāʾin). Treasury, used in a religious context

in reference to the treasury of the invisible world wherein the
essential reality of things is to be found.

al-Khiḍr. The mysterious prophet mentioned in the Quran,

who is always alive and who is identified with the esoteric
dimension of religion. He has been compared to the Jewish
prophet Elijah.

khirqah. The cloak worn by the Sufis.

al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn. The “rightly guided caliphs,”

consisting of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī.

khums. One-fifth, a religious tax levied in Shīʿism and paid to

the religious authorities as representatives of the Imam.

738
kitāb. Book, usually used in the sense of sacred scripture and
especially the Quran, but also other revealed books such as
the Torah and the Gospels.

kufr. Infidelity, unbelief.

al-Kursī. The pedestal of the Throne (al-ʿArsh) of God

according to Quranic symbolism. Also the Throne itself.

al-lāhūt. The world of Divine Names and Qualities.

al-Lawḥ. The Guarded Tablet, upon which God has “written”

the archetypical realities with the Pen. See also al-Lawḥ
al-Maḥfūz.

al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ. The “Guarded Tablet,” upon which the

reality of all things was written before God created them
externally and bestowed upon them objective existence.

Laylat al-miʿrāj. The “Night of Ascent,” when, according to

the Quran, the Prophet was taken by the archangel Gabriel
from Mecca to Jerusalem and from there ascended to the
highest heaven and drew nigh to the Divine Presence Itself.

Laylat al-qadr. The “Night of Power” or “Night of Descent,”

one of the odd nights of the last ten nights of Ramaḍān, when
the Quran was first revealed.

maʿād. The “return” to God; i.e., eschatology and also

resurrection, in reference to both the individual and the
cosmic order.

mabdaʾ. Source, origin, often used as a Name for God.

739
madhkūr. The invoked.

madrasah. The traditional Islamic school of a more advanced

nature than the Quranic schools where the earliest instruction
was imparted.

maghrib. Evening or sunset, the fourth time specified for the

performance of the daily prayers.

maḥabbah. Love, used especially in Sufism as the love of

God.

al-Mahdī. The “rightly guided one” who is expected to save

humanity from oppression and injustice and to establish a
reign of peace as part of the eschatological events connected
with the second coming of Christ and the end of the world.

majālis-i ʿazāʾ. Sessions devoted to mourning, especially of

Ḥusayn. These religious gatherings are popular in Shīʿism
and are held mostly during the month of Muḥarram.

majlis (pl. majālis). Gathering, used in Sufism in a technical

sense as the gathering of the Sufis.

majlis al-dhikr. Gathering of the Sufis in which God’s Names

and various litanies are invoked.

makhāfah. Fear, used usually in Sufism as the fear of God and

the first stage of spiritual perfection.

malak (pl. malāʾikah). Angel.

al-malakūt. The angelic and psychic worlds.

740
maʿnā. Meaning or inward aspect as opposed to form or
external aspect of things.

maʿnawiyyah. Spirituality, that which is related to the world

of meaning (maʿnā).

maqām (pl. maqāmāt). Used as a technical term in Sufism to

denote a spiritual station attained permanently as a result of
traveling upon the spiritual path.

maʿrifah. Knowledge, gnosis.

martabah (pl. marātib). Stage, level.

marthiyah. Elegy, popular especially in Shīʿism in connection

with the death of the Imams.

mashshāʾī. Peripatetic, referring to that school of Islamic

philosophy founded by al-Kindī, developed by al-Fārābī and
reaching its peak with Ibn Sīnā, in which Aristotelian
philosophy in its Neoplatonic interpretation was combined
with tenets of Islam into one of the major Islamic
philosophical schools.

maʿshūq. The beloved.

mā siwaʾLlāh. All that is other than God.

maʿṣūm. Inerrant, the person who possesses the quality of

ʿiṣmah or inerrancy.

741
mathnawī. Rhyming couplet of poetry. This has also become
the name of Rūmī’s most famous poetical work, written in
rhyming couplets.

mawlā. Master, lord, patron, also client.

mawlid (pl. mawlidāt). Birthday of the Prophet or a saint,

often marked by celebrations.

mawlid al-nabī. Birthday of the Prophet.

maẓhar. The locus of theophany, place of appearance of a

Divine Quality.

mishkāt. Niche.

mithāl. Symbol, image, similitude, parable.

mīthāq. Covenant, especially the covenant made between God

and man before the creation of the world.

miḥrāb. The niche in the mosque in the direction of Mecca

before which the faithful stand when praying.

miʿrāj. See Laylat al-miʿrāj.

mudhākarah. Spiritual exhortations and deliberations of a

Sufi master usually given during Sufi gatherings.

muhājirūn. The immigrants who migrated with the Prophet

from Mecca to Medina.

742
Muḥarram. The first month of the Islamic lunar year during
which Husayn was martyred in Karbalāʾ.

muḥāsabah. Examination of one’s conscience by rendering an

account of all of one’s acts.

muḥsin. The person who possesses virtue or iḥsān.

al-Muḥyī. The Giver of Life, a Divine Name.

mujāhadah. Ascetic discipline and spiritual struggle upon the

Sufi path; synonymous with al-jihād al-akbar.

mujāhid. The person who exerts himself in the path of God.

mujarrad. Disengaged or divorced from matter, potentiality,

and imperfection.

mujtahid. An authority who can give independent opinion in

the Sharīʿah, that is, practice ijtihād. Nowadays this term is
used almost exclusively in Twelve-Imam Shīʿism, where such
authorities constitute a distinct class and wield great power.

al-mulk. The corporeal or visible world consisting of the three

kingdoms.

muʾmin. The person of faith, the Muslim who not only has
surrendered his will to God and followed the injunction of
Islam but also has ardent faith in God in his heart.

al-Mumīt. The Slayer or Giver of death, a Divine Name.

munājāt. Supplications, prayers.

743
murāqabah. Vigilance upon the spiritual path; meditation and
self-reflection.

muraqqaʿah. Patched cloak worn by the Sufis.

murīd. The disciple in a Sufi order. In the sense of one who

wills, it is also a Divine Name, God being al-Murīd, He Who
wills.

murshid. The spiritual master or guide.

muṣāfaḥah. Shaking of hands especially as practiced in a

special manner by the Sufis.

al-Muṣawwir. The “producer of form” one of the Names of

God.

mushāraṭah. “Putting conditions” to have the intention to

devote oneself completely to God.

mutabarrak. Blessed—one who has received the blessing of a

Sufi order without journeying actively upon the Sufi path.

mutʿah. Temporary marriage allowed in Shīʿism but not in

Sunnism.

muttaqī. The person who possesses reverential fear of God

and piety.

muwaḥḥid. “Unitarian,” one who confesses to God’s Unity

and lives accordingly.

744
nabī. Prophet, he who is appointed by God to bring some kind
of message from Him to men. If this message is a book or
new dispensation from heaven, then the nabī is called rasūl.

al-nabī al-ummī. The “unlettered Prophet,” one of the titles of

the Prophet, since his soul was pure from all human
knowledge and “virgin” before the Divine Word which
descended upon it.

nafas al-Raḥmān. The “breath of the Compassionate,” by

which God as the Compassionate has brought the world into
being.

nāfilah (pl. nawāfil). Supererogatory rites and performances.

nafs. The self, the soul.

al-nafs al-ammārah. The passionate soul which incites man to

evil.

al-nafs al-ḥayawāniyyah. The animal soul.

al-nafs al-lawwāmah. The blaming soul, the stage in the

development of the soul where the soul begins to understand
its own faults and blame itself for its shortcomings.

al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah. The soul at peace and resting in

certitude.

nafy. Negation.

naṣṣ. Text, writ, designation from the Imam or Divine Realm.

745
nāṭiq. He who speaks. Used by Ismāʿīlīs in reference to those
prophets and Imams whose function it was to teach openly
what was revealed or transmitted to them.

nifāq. Hypocrisy, dissemblance

niyyah. The intention that lies behind an act.

nubuwwah. Prophecy, the power and function by virtue of

whose possession a person becomes a prophet.

nūr. Light.

nūr al-anwār. The “Light of lights,” the Name given by

Suhrawardī to God as the Supreme Light, Who is the source
of all the lights that constitute the universe.

al-nūr al-muḥammadī. “Muḥammadan Light,” the inner

reality of the Prophet, which is identified by Sufis and also
Shīʿites with his spiritual function and nature and which is
reflected in one degree or another in the Imams and saints.

pīr. Spiritual master, shaykh; in Ismāʿīlism, a dāʿī.

qabḍ. Contraction.

qaḍāʾ. The Divine Judgment or Decree; what has been willed

for man.

al-qadar. That which is man’s lot or portion in life,

predestination, destiny.

746
al-Qahhār. A Name of God: the Subduer, the Almighty, the
Dominant.

al-Qalam. The Pen, usually used as a symbol of the Divine

Intellect and the instrument of God’s creative act.

qalb. Heart, identified in the Quran with the seat of

intelligence and the center of the microcosm.

al-Qarīb. He Who is near; a Divine Name by virtue of which

God is nearer to man than man is to himself.

al-Qayyūm. A Name of God: the Self-Subsistent.

qiblah. The direction determined by the location of the

Kaʿbah which Muslims must face while offering their
prayers.

qiyām. Uprising, also used to signify a religious movement

connected in Shīʿism with the Imam or his representatives.

qiyāmah. Resurrection.

qiyās. Analogical reasoning used in certain schools of Islamic

Law. In logic and philosophy, it means syllogism.

qudrah. Power, might.

al-Qurʾān al-tadwīnī. The written and recorded Quran, which

is known to man as the book in Arabic containing the
Revelation of God.

747
al-Qurʾān al-takwīnī. The cosmic Quran, or the cosmos seen
as God’s primordial Revelation, upon whose “pages” are
inscribed God’s message.

qurb. Proximity, nearness; usually used in Sufism in reference

to man’s nearness to God.

al-Rabb. A Divine Name meaning Lord or Master.

Rabb al-ʿālamīn. Lord of the Worlds, a Divine Name.

rabbānī. Lordly, godly.

al-Raḥīm. A Name of God, the Divine Compassion which

touches beings directly.

al-Raḥmān. A Name of God, the all-encompassing Divine

Mercy.

raḥmatun liʾl-ʿālamīn. Mercy unto the worlds, a title of the

Prophet.

rajāʾ. Hope in God’s mercy and benevolence.

Ramaḍān. The holy lunar month of the Islamic calendar

during which all Muslims who have the capability are obliged
to fast from dawn to sunset.

al-Rashīd. The One Who guides upon the straight path, a

Name of God.

al-Rāqib. A Name of God: the Vigilant.

748
rasūl. Messenger, he who has been chosen by God to bring
His message to mankind.

riḍāʾ. Satisfaction, contentment with what God has given to

man.

riḍwān. The highest paradise.

rūḥ. The Spirit, including both the Supreme Spirit and the
spirit within man.

rūḥāniyyah. Spirituality, that which is related to the Spirit

(rūḥ).

rukūʿ. Bowing in the daily prayers.

sabīl. Path, way.

sabʿiyyah. The Seveners, often used erroneously as a name

for the Ismāʿīlīs.

ṣabr. Patience.

ṣaḥābah. Companions of the Prophet.

ṣāḥib al-tanzīl. He who has the knowledge and authority to

interpret the outer meaning of the Quran.

ṣāḥib al-taʾwīl. He who has the knowledge and authority to

interpret the inner meaning of the Quran.

749
ṣaḥīḥ (pl. ṣiḥāḥ). Literally, “the correct book,” the title given
to the canonical collections of Ḥadīth accepted by the Sunni
community as being authentic.

sakīnah. Divine Peace that descends upon the heart of the

faithful.

al-Salām. Peace, a Divine Name, and also the greeting used

by all Muslims, who, upon the instruction of the Prophet,
greet each other by saying “Peace be upon you.”

ṣalāt (namāz in Persian). The canonical daily prayers which

are obligatory for all Muslims to perform five times a day.

ṣalāt ʿalaʾl-nabī. Benediction or blessing upon the Prophet.

ṣalāt al-jumʿah. The congregational prayers of Friday

performed at midday.

ṣalāt al-ṭarīqah. The canonical prayers interiorized and

understood according to their inner meaning.

sālik. One who journeys upon the spiritual path in an active

manner; hence, another name for the disciple upon the Sufi
path who actually travels upon the path and is not simply
passive.

samāʾ. Heaven, sky.

samāʿ. Spiritual concert of the Sufis.

samāʿ khānah. A place where the Sufi music and dance takes
place.

750
al-Ṣamad. A Divine Name, the everlasting Reality which is
not in need of anything and which is rich in Itself.

ṣawm. Fast, identified especially with the obligatory fast of

the month of Ramaḍān.

shafāʿah. Intercession both in this world and in the hereafter.

shahādah. Literally, “bearing witness.” It refers to the two

testimonies of faith in Islam: “There is no divinity but God”
and “Muḥammad is the messenger of God,” called the first
and second Shahādah respectively.

shāhid. Witness.

shahīd (pl. shuhadāʾ). Martyred, one who has lost his or her
life for God.

shahwah. Passion, inclinations of the lower soul toward lust

and concupiscence.

shaʾn al-nuzūl. The conditions under which a particular verse

of the Quran was revealed.

Sharīʿah. The Divine Law, which is rooted in the Quran and

Ḥadīth. Muslims also refer to the sacred laws of other
religions as their sharīʿah.

sharīk. Partner.

shaykh. Elder, a revered person, a learned man or

teacher—more specifically, a spiritual master.

751
shayṭān. Satan.

shirk. “Associationism,” or the cardinal sin of taking a partner

unto God and associating another divinity with Him;
believing that there are realities independent of God.

shuhūd. Vision, contemplation.

shūrā. Consultation, a principle mentioned in the Quran,

according to which Muslims should conduct their affairs.

sibḥah. The rosary used during litanies and invocation.

ṣifah (pl. ṣifāt). Quality, attribute.

silsilah. Chain, used in the religious sciences as the chain of

authorities linking a particular saying or idea to its origin,
usually the Prophet in the case of ḥadīth or the founder of a
particular school; in Sufism it is the initiatic chain which links
a particular master through generations of masters before him
to the Prophet and finally God.

sīrah. Biography or history, used especially in reference to

the life of the Prophet.

al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm. The “straight path,” which defines the

life of Islam in general and the spiritual life in particular.

sirr. Secret, depth of the heart, inmost consciousness.

sitr. The state of being hidden from view in reference to

Ismāʿīlī beliefs about certain of their imams.

752
ṣuḥbah. “Good company,” or being in the company of the
Sufis; the relationship of the disciples to one another.

sujūd. The position of prostration during the canonical

prayers when the forehead touches the ground.

sunnah. The tradition of the Prophet embracing his manner

and ways of doing and acting in different circumstances in
life.

sūrah. A chapter of the Quran.

ṣūrah (pl. ṣuwar). Form, in the Aristotelian sense and as the

outward aspect of a being.

Sūrat al-fātiḥah. The opening chapter of the Quran, which is

repeated during the daily canonical prayers.

ṭabīʿah. Nature, both in the philosophical sense of the nature

of something and in the ordinary sense of the world of
creation.

tābiʿūn. Followers of the companions, the generation which

followed the companions.

tafakkur. Meditation.

tafsīr. Commentary, usually associated with the Quran but

also used in other instances.

ṭahārah. Ritual purification required before performance of

certain Islamic rites.

753
taḥliyah. Embellishment of the soul with virtues.

tajallī. Theophany, reflection of a Divine Name upon the

mirror of cosmic existence.

takbīr. Invoking the formula Allāhu akbar.

takhliyah. Emptying the soul of all imperfection.

takiyyah. A center of religious gatherings; a Sufi center.

tālib. The seeker after knowledge or the spiritual path.

tanāsukh. Transmigration.

tanzīl. Descent, referring to the Revelation of the Quran to the

Prophet, as it “descended” upon him.

taqiyyah. Dissimulation, hiding of one’s religious beliefs in

the face of danger.

taqlīd. Imitation or emulation of a religious model, authority,

or pattern of thought.

taqwā. Fear of God, piety.

ṭarīqah. The spiritual way or path identified with Sufism; also

a Sufi order.

taṣawwuf. Sufism, Islamic esoterism and mysticism.

754
tashbīh. Comparing a Divine Quality to a cosmic or human
one in order to make it comprehensible; immanence;
symbolic interpretation; anthropomorphism.

taʿṭīl. Refusing to the human intellect the power to understand

the meaning of God’s Names and Qualities for fear of
anthropomorphizing the Divinity.

ṭawāf. Circumambulation around the Kaʿbah.

tawakkul. Reliance upon God.

tawbah. Repentance before God for one’s sins.

tawḥīd. Unity, oneness, and also the act of bringing about

oneness or integration.

tawḥīd al-ṣifāt. Unity of Divine Qualities.

taʾwīl. Inner, esoteric commentary or hermeneutics of the

Sacred Text but also of the “cosmic text” as well as inspired
writings.

taʾwīl-i bāṭin. Hermeneutic or esoteric interpretation of the

inward.

tazkiyat al-nafs. Purification of the soul.

ʿubūdiyyah. The state of servitude before God.

ufuq (pl. āfāq). Horizon.

ukhuwwat al-islāmiyyah. Islamic brotherhood.

755
ʿulamāʾ (sg. ʿālim). Class of learned men in Islamic society
usually but not completely identified with those learned in the
religious sciences, particularly Law.

ummah. The community, usually identified with the Islamic

people but also applied to the followers of other prophets and
therefore other religious communities.

Umm al-kitāb. The “mother of Books,” one of the names of

the Quran, referring to its nature as the source of all
knowledge.

umm al-muʾ minīn. Mother of the faithful, a title used in

reference to the wives of the Prophet, especially Khadījah.

uṣūl al-dīn. The principles of religion.

uswah ḥasanah. The good or perfect model to follow, a

description given in the Quran to the Prophet.

al-Wadūd. He who loves, one of the Names of God.

waḥdāniyyah. The state of unity in multiplicity but before the

manifestation of existence, the state in which the Divine
Names have become distinct one from another but have not as
yet become manifested.

waḥdat al-wujūd. The “transcendent unity of being,” the

doctrine held by many Sufis according to which only God
possesses Being, all that exists deriving its existence from the
One Being Who alone is.

al-Wahhāb. The Bestower, a Name of God.

756
al-Wāḥid. A Divine Name: the One.

wajh (pl. wujūh). Face, used in the singular for God, as in the
expression wajh Allāh (Face of God), which means that
aspect of the Divinity turned to the created order.

wājib. That act which is obligatory for a Muslim according to

the injunctions of the religion. The term is used mostly but
not exclusively in the domain of Law.

al-Wakīl. A Divine Name: the Trustee.

walī Allāh (pl. awliyāʾ Allāh). Literally, “friend of God,” a

term usually used to designate a saint.

waṣī. Inheritor, used in Shīʿism in the specific sense of ʿAlī’s

inheriting the non-prophetic functions of the Prophet.

wāṣil. One who has reached the end of the spiritual path and
experienced union.

wāsiṭah. Link, connection, intermediary.

wilāyah. Domination, rule; also the inner and esoteric

function of the Prophet, which, according to Shīʿism, was
transmitted to the Imams. In Sufism it is associated with
esoterism as such.

wird. The litany recited usually twice a day in Sufi orders.

wiṣāl. Union, usually understood mystically.

757
wuḍūʾ. Ablution required before the daily prayers and usually
made before entry into a holy place.

wuṣūl. Arriving or reaching the end, usually used mystically

in association with the final goal of the spiritual path.

al-Ẓāhir. The outward or manifest; also a Name of God, Who

is the Manifest, the Outward.

zakāt. Religious tax which is obligatory and constitutes one of

the pillars of Islam.

Zamzam. The spring of water near the Kaʿbah, which,

according to tradition, gushed forth when Hagar sought water
in the precinct of the Kaʿbah.

zāwiyah. A Sufi center.

zuhd. Asceticism.

ẓuhr. Noon, the second time specified for the performance of

the daily prayers and set at midday.

758
759
Bibliography

[Since most works on Islam treat it from the Sunni point of

view, a separate bibliography will not be given for Sunnism.
The bibliography is limited to works in European languages.
Full publication information is given only at the first citation
of a work.]

Reference Works

Encyclopaedia of Islam. Old and new editions. Leiden: Brill.

Pearson, J. D. Index Islamicus. Cambridge: Heffer, 1958—.

[Continues to this day and includes a thorough list of articles
and, since 1976, also books on all aspects of Islam, including
spirituality.]

Sauvaget, J. Introduction to the History of the Muslim East: A

Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1965.

Part One:
The Roots of the Islamic Tradition and Spirituality

Abul Quasem, M. The Recitation and Interpretation of the

Quran: al-Ghazzālī’s Theory. London and Boston: Kegan
Paul International, 1982.

Ali, Muhammad. A Manual of Ḥadīth. Lahore: Ahmidiyya

Anjuman, 1951.

760
Andrae, T. Mohammad: The Man and His Faith. Translated
by T. Menzel. New York: Harper Torchbook, 1960.

Arberry, A. J. The Koran Interpreted. London: Allen &

Unwin, 1955.

Archer, J. C. Mystical Elements in Mohammad. Yale Oriental

Series 11.1. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980.

Baljon, J. A Mystical Interpretation of Prophetic Tales by an

Indian Muslim: Shah Wali Allah’s Taʾwil al-ahadith. Leiden:
Brill, 1973.

Brohi, A. K. Islam in the Modern World. Karachi: Islamic

Research Academy, 1968.

Bukhārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh. Kitāb jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ. Translated by

M. M. Khan. 6 vols. Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1978–80.

Burckhardt, T. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine. Translated

by D. M. Matheson. Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1959.

Corbin, H. En Islam iranien. 4 vols. Paris: Gallimard,

1971–72.

——. Face de Dieu, Face de l’homme. Paris: Flammarion,

1983.

——(with S. H. Nasr and O. Yahya). Histoire de la

philosophie islamique. Part I. Paris: Gallimard, 1964.

——. “L’intériorisation du sens en herméneutique soufie

iranienne.” Eranos Jahrbuch 26 (1957) 57–187.

761
Cragg, K. The Mind of the Quran: Chapters in Reflection.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1973.

Danner, V. The Islamic Tradition. Warwick, NY: Amity

House, 1987.

Dermenghem, E. Muhammad and the Islamic Tradition.

Translated by J. M. Watt. New York: Harper, 1958.

——. The Life of Mahomet. London: Routledge, 1930.

Denny, F. M. An Introduction to Islam. New York:

Macmillan, 1985.

Eaton, C. G. Islam and the Destiny of Man. Albany, NY:

State University of New York Press, 1985.

Esin, E. Mecca the Blessed, Medina the Radiant. London:

Paul Elek, 1963.

Garaudy, R. Promesses de l’Islam. Paris: Seuil, 1981.

Gardet, L. Mohammedanism. Translated by W. Burridge.

New York: Hawthorn Books, 1961.

——. La Cité musulmane, vie sociale et politique. Paris: J.

Vrin, 1961.

Al-Ghazzālī, Abū Ḥāmid. The Jewels of the Quran.

Translated by M. Abul Quasem. London and Boston: Kegan
Paul International, 1983.

762
——. Mishkāt al-anwār. Translated by W. H. T. Gairdner.
Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1952.

Gheorghiu, G. La Vie de Mahomet. Paris: Gallimard, 1964.

Gibb, H. A. R. Mohammedanism. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1982.

Gilis, C. Le Coran et la fonction d’Hermes. Paris: Les

Editions de l’Oeuvre, 1984.

Graham, W. Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam.

The Hague: Mouton, 1977.

Guillaume, A., trans. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation

of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. London: Oxford University
Press. 1955.

Hamidullah, M. Le Prophète de l’Islam. 2 vols. Paris: J. Vrin,

1959.

Izutsu, T. God and Man in the Koran. Tokyo: The Keio

Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964.

——. Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Quran. Montreal:

McGill University Press, 1966.

Jeffery, A., ed. A Reader on Islam. The Hague: Mouton,

1962.

Lings, M. “The Quranic Symbolism of Water.” Studies in

Comparative Religion 2 (Summer 1968).

763
——. What is Sufism? Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1975.

——. Muhammad. London: Allen & Unwin, 1984.

Lory, P. Les Commentaires ésotériques du Coran d’après

ʿAbd ar-Razzāq al-Qāshānī. Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1980.

McClain, E. Meditations through the Quran: Tonal Images in

an Oral Culture. York Beach, ME: Nicolas Hays, 1981.

Mahmud, Abdel Haleem. The Creed of Islam. London: World

of Islam Festival Trust, 1978.

Malik, C. God and Man in Contemporary Islamic Thought.

Beirut: American University of Beirut Centennial
Publications, 1972.

Muslim, ibn Ḥajjāj. Ṣaḥīḥ. Translated by A. H. Siddiqi. 4

vols. New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1982.

Nasr, S. H. Muhammad, the Man of Allah. London:

Muhammadi Trust, 1982.

——. Ideals and Realities of Islam. London: Allen & Unwin,

1985.

——. Islamic Life and Thought. Albany, NY: State

University of New York Press, 1981.

Nurbakhsh, J. Traditions of the Prophet. 2 vols. New York:

Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1981–83.

764
Nwyia, P. “Le tafsir mystique attribué à Gaʿfar Ṣādiq.”
Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 43 (1967) 179–230.

Padwick, C. Muslim Devotions. London: SPCK, 1961.

Paret, R. Mohammad und der Koran Geschichte und

Verkündigung des arabischen Propheten. Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 1980.

Pickthall, M. M. The Meaning of the Glorious Koran. New

York: New American Library, 1963.

Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qurʾān. Minneapolis

and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980.

Schimmel, A. M. And Muhammad is His Messenger. Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Schuon, F. Understanding Islam. Translated by D. M.

Matheson. London: Allen & Unwin, 1976.

——. Islam and the Perennial Philosophy. Translated by J. P.

Hobson. London: World of Islam, 1976.

——. Dimensions of Islam. Translated by P. N. Townsend.

London: Allen & Unwin, 1970.

——. Christianity/Islam: Essays on Esoteric Ecumenism.

Translated by G. Polit. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom,
1985.

Ṣiddīqī, M. Z. Ḥadīth Literature. Calcutta: Calcutta

University Press, 1961.

765
Siraj Ed-Din, Abu Bakr. The Book of Certainty. New York:
Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Suhrawardy, A. The Sayings of Muhammad. London: John

Murray, 1941.

Al-Tabrīzī. Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ. Translated by J. Robson. 4

vols. Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1963–65.

Valiuddin, Mir. The Essential Features of Islam. Hyderabad,

Daccan: Daʾiratuʾl-Maʿarif Press Osmania University, n.d.

Widengren, G. Muhammad: The Apostle and His Ascension.

Uppsala: Lundquist, 1955.

Yusuf ʿAli, A. The Personality of Muhammad the Prophet.

Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1931.

Yusuf, S. M. An Essay on the Sunnah. Karachi: Institute of

Islamic Culture, 1966.

Inner Meaning of Rites (including Prayer)

Arnold, E. Pearls of the Faith or Islam’s Rosary. Boston:

Roberts Brothers, 1883.

Corbin, H. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī.

Translated by R. Manheim. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1981. Part 2, “Creative Imagination and
Creative Prayer.”

766
——. Temple et contemplation. Paris: Flammarion, 1980. Pp.
197–283, “La configuration du temple de la Kaʿba comme
secret de la vie spirituelle.”

Cragg, K. The Dome of the Rock. London: SPCK, 1964.

——., trans. Dalāʾil al-khayrāt. Cairo, n.d.

Al-Ghazzālī, Abū Ḥāmīd. Al-Ghazālī—Inner Dimensions of

Islamic Worship. Translated by M. Holland. Leicester:
Islamic Foundation, 1983.

——. Ghazali on Prayer. Translated by K. Nakamura. Tokyo:

The Institute of Oriental Culture, 1973.

Gilis, C. La Doctrine initiatique du pelerinage à la maison

d’Allah. Paris: Les Editions de l’Oeuvre, 1982.

Massignon, L. Opera Minora. Edited by Y. Moubarac. 3 vols.

Beirut: Librairie Orientale, 1963.

Nasr, S. H. Islamic Life and Thought. Pp. 191–99, “The

Interior Life in Islam.”

Padwick, Muslim Devotions.

Valiuddin, Mir. Contemplative Disciplines in Sufism. London:

East-West Publications, 1980.

Part Two: Aspects of the Islamic Tradition

Twelve-Imam Shīʿism

767
Ayoub, M. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the
Devotional Aspects of ʿĀshūrā in Twelver Shīʿism.
Hawthorne, NY: Mouton, 1978.

Chelkowski, P., ed. Taʿziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran. New

York: New York University Press, 1979.

Chittick, W. C., trans. Supplications (Duʿā) Amīr

al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. London: Muhammadi Trust,
n.d.

Donaldson, D. M. The Shiʿite Religion. London: Luzac, 1933.

Al-Ḥillī, Ḥasan b. Yūsuf. Al-Bāb al-ḥādī ʿashar. Translated

by W. M. Miller [A Treatise on the Principles of Shīʿite
Theology]. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1928.

Hollister, J. N. The Shiʿa of India. London: Luzac, 1953.

Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. Risālat al-Iʿtiqādat. Translated by

A. A. A. Fyzee [A Shīʿite Creed]. London: Oxford University
Press, 1942.

Jafri, H. M. Origins and Early Development of Shīʿa Islam.

2nd ed. London: Longman, 1981.

——. “Morality and Conduct of Life in Islam” [Eng. trans. of

Nahj al-Balaghah’s letter No. 31]. Hamdard Islamicus
[Karachi] 2 (1979) 3–29.

——. “An Interpretation of the Fundamental Beliefs and

Some of the Institutions of Islam” [Eng. trans., with an

768
introduction, of Nahj al-Balaghah’s first sermon]. Arabica
[Paris] 30 (1984) 290–302.

Kattānī, Sulaymān. Imām ʿAlī: Source of Light, Wisdom and

Might. Translated by I. K. A. Howard. London: Muhammadi
Trust, 1983.

Nasr, S. H. Ideals and Realities of Islam. Pp. 147–78,

“Shīʿism and Sunnism: Twelve Imām Shīʿsm and
Ismāʿīlism.”

——. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Section on
the relation of Shīʿism to the arts and sciences in Islam.

——. “The spiritual significance of Jihād.” Alserāt 6 (1980)

4–10.

——. “Ithnā ʿAshariyya.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed.,

277–79.

Sachedina, A. A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdī

in Twelver Shīʿism. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1980.

Shaykh al-Mufīd. Kitāb al-irshād. Translated by I. K. A.

Howard. [The Book of Guidance]. London: Muhammadi
Trust, 1981.

Ṭabāṭabāʾī ʿAllamāh Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn. Shīʿah dar

Islām. Translated by S. H. Nasr [Shīʿite Islam]. London:
Allen & Unwin; Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1975.

769
——. A Shīʿite Anthology. Translated by W. C. Chittick.
Introduction by S. H. Nasr. London: Muhammadi Trust,
1980.

Ismāʿīlism

The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4. Edited by R. N. Frye.

Cambridge: University Press, 1975.

The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Edited by J. A. Boyle.

Cambridge: University Press, 1968.

Corbin, H. Cyclical Time and Ismāʿīlī Gnosis. London:

Kegan Paul International, 1983.

——. Histoire de la philosophie islamique.

Halm, Heinz. Kosmologie und Heilslehre der frühen

Ismāʿīlīya: Eine Studie zur Ismailischen Gnosis. Wiesbaden:
F. Steiner, 1978.

Hamdani, A. The Fāṭimids. Karachi: Pakistan Publishing

House, 1962.

Hodgson, M. G. S. The Order of Assassins. The Hague:

Mouton, 1955.

Ivanow, W. Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ismāʿīlism.

Leiden: Brill, 1952.

——. “Ismāʿīliyya.” Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam.

770
Lewis, B. Origins of Ismāʿīlism. Cambridge: W. Heffer and
Sons, 1940.

Madelung, W. “Das Imamat in der frühen ismailitischen

Lehre.” Der Islam 37 (1961) 43–135.

——. “Ismāʿīliyya.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.

Nanji, Azim. The Nizārī Ismāʿīlī Tradition in the

Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent. New York: Caravan Books,
1978.

Nasr, S. H., ed. Ismāʿīlī Contributions to Islamic Culture.

Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977.

Poonawala, I. K. Biobibliography of Ismāʿīlī Literature.

Malibu, CA: Undena, 1977. al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān. Daʿāʾim
al-Islām. Translated by A. A. A. Fyzee. London: Institute of
Ismāʿīlī Studies, forthcoming.

Stern, S. M. Studies in Early Ismaʿilism. Leiden: Brill, 1983.

Walker, Paul. “Cosmic Hierarchies in Early Ismāʿīlī

Thought.” Muslim World 66 (1976) 14–28.

Female Spirituality in Islam

Austin, R. W. J. “Islam and the Feminine.” In Islam in the

Modern World, 36–48. Edited by D. MacEoin and A.
al-Shahi. London: Croom Helm, 1983.

Bakhtiar, L. Sufi—Expressions of the Mystic Quest. London:

Thames & Hudson, 1979.

771
Nurbakhsh, J. Sufi Women. New York:
Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Publications, 1983.

Schimmel, A. M. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Appendix 2, pp.
426–35, “The Feminine Element in Sufism.”

Smith, M. Rabiʿa the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam.

Cambridge: University Press, 1928.

Waddy, C. Women in Muslim History. London: Longman,

1980.

Yashruṭiyyah, al-Sayyidah Fāṭimah. “Contemplation and

Action: The Sufi Way.” In Contemplation and Action in
World Religions, 212–17. Edited by Y. Ibish and I.
Marculescu. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978.

Part Three: Sufism: The Inner Dimension of Islam

The Nature and Origin of Sufism

Austin, R. W. “Some Observations on the Study of Sufi

Origins.” In Actas IV Congresso de Estudios Arabes &
Islamicos, 1968 (1971), 101–7.

Burckhardt, T. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrines. 1:3–11,

“At-Taṣawwuf.”

Danner, V. “The Necessity for the Rise of the Term Sufi.”

Studies in Comparative Religion 6 (1972) 71–77.

Lings, M. What is Sufism?

772
——. A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1971. Chapter 2, pp.
34–47, “The Origins of Sufism.”

Massignon, L. “La meditation coranique et les origines du

lexique soufi.” Actes Congres International Histoire des
Religions 2 (1923) 412–14.

Nasr, S. H. Ideals and Realities of Islam. Chapter 5, pp.

121–46, “The Ṭarīqah—The Spiritual Path and its Quranic
Roots.”

——. Sufi Essays. Albany, NY: State University of New York

Press, 1985.

Nicholson, R. A. “A Historical Enquiry Concerning the

Origin and Development of Sufism with a List of Definitions
of the Terms ‘ṣūfī’ and ‘taṣawwuf’ arranged chronologically.”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1906) 303–48.

Schimmel, A. M. “The Origin and Early Development of

Sufism.” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 7 (1959)
55–67.

Schuon, F. Understanding Islam. Chapter 4, pp. 106–59, “The

Way.”

Stoddart, W. Sufism: The Mystical Doctrines and Methods.

Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1976.

The Early Development of Sufism

773
Al-Anṣārī al-Harawī. Les Étapes des itinérants vers Dieu.
Edited and translated by S. de Laugier de Beaurecueil. Cairo:
Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale,
1962.

ʿAṭtār, Farīd al-Dīn. Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ. Translated by A. J.

Arberry [Muslim Saints and Mystics]. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1966.

Böwering, G. The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical

Islam: The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī
(d. 283/896). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1980.

Burckhardt, T. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrines.

——. The Art of Islam. London: Festival of the World of

Islam, 1976.

Depont, O., and X. Coppolani. Les Confréries religieuses

musulmanes. Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1897.

Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Al Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl.

Translated and annotated by R. J. McCarthy [Freedom and
Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of al-Ghazālī’s
al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl and other Relevant Works of
al-Ghazālī]. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

Al-Hujwīrī, ʿAlī. Kashf al-Maḥjūb. Translated by R. A.

Nicholson. London: Luzac, 1911.

Al-Kalābādhī, Muḥammad. Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-Madhhab Ahl

al-Taṣawwuf. Translated by A. J. Arberry [The Doctrine of
the Sufis], Cambridge: University Press, 1935.

774
Laugier de Beaurecueil, S. de. Khwādja ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī
(396–481/1006–1089): mystique ḥanbalite. Beirut:
Imprimerie catholique, 1965.

Lings, M. What is Sufism?

Massignon, L. Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de

la mystique musulmane. Rev. ed. Paris: J. Vrin, 1968.

——. The Passion of al-Hallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam.

Translated by H. Mason. 4 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1982.

Molé, M. Les Mystiques musulmans. Paris: Presses

universitaires de France, 1965. Nasr, S. H. Sufi Essays.

Nwyia, P. Exégèse coranique et langage mystique. Beirut:

Librairie Orientale, 1970.

Reinan, B. Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik.

Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968.

Schimmel, A. M. Mystical Dimensions of Islam.

Schuon, F. Islam and the Perennial Philosophy.

Siraj Ed-Din, Abu Bakr. The Book of Certainty.

Smith, M. Rabiʿa the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam.

Watt, W. M. The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazālī. London:

Allen & Unwin, 1953.

775
Spiritual Practices of Sufism

Anawati, G. C., and L. Gardet. La Mystique musulmane.

Paris: J. Vrin, 1961.

Ibn ʿAbbād of Ronda. Letters on the Sufi Path. Translated by

J. Renard. New York: Paulist Press, 1986.

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh. Traité sur le nom Allāh. Translated by M.

Gloton. Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1981.

Bannerth, E. “Dhikr et Khalwa d’après Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh.”

MIDEO (1974) 65–90.

Burckhardt, T. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrines. Pp. 99–105,

“Rites.”

Canteins, J. La Voie des lettres. Paris: Albin Michel, 1981.

Ad-Darqāwī, al-ʿArabī. Letters of a Sufi Master. Translated

by T. Burckhardt. Bedfont, England: Perennial Books, 1961.

Gardet, L. “La mention du Nom divin, dhikr, dans la

mystique musulmane.” Revue Thomiste 52 (1952) 542–676;
53 (1953) 197–216.

Lings, M. What is Sufism? Pp. 74–91, “The Method.”

Michon, J. L. Le Soufi marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība

(1746–1809) et son Miʿrāj. Paris: J. Vrin, 1973. Pp. 122–31,
“L’invocation du nom divin.”

Valiuddin, Mir. Contemplative Disciplines in Sufism.

776
Sufi Science of the Soul

Arasteh, R. “Psychology of the Sufi Way to Individuation.” In

Sufi Studies: East and West, 89–113. Edited by L. F.
Rushbrook Williams. London: Octagon Press, 1973.

Asín Palacios, M. “La Psicologia según Mohidin Abenarabi.”

Actes du XIV Congres Inter. des Orient. Alger, 1905, vol. 3,
Paris, 1907.

Burckhardt, T. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine.

Al-Darqāwī, al-ʿArabī. Letters of a Sufi Master.

Heer, N. “A Sufi Psychological Treatise.” Muslim World 5

(1961) 25–36, 83–91, 163–72, 244–58.

Ibn ʿArabī, Muḥyī al-Dīn. L’Alchimie du bonheur parfait.

Translated by S. Ruspoli. Paris: Berg International, 1981.

Nasr, S. H. Sufi Essays. Chapter 2, pp. 43–51, “Sufism and

the Integration of Man.”

Nurbakhsh, J. What the Sufis Say. New York:

Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Publications, 1980. Part 1, “Sufism
and Psychoanalysis.”

Schimmel, A. M. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Pp. 187–92,

“Some Notes on Sufi Psychology.”

Shafii, M. Freedom from the Self. New York: Human

Sciences Press, 1985.

777
Valiuddin, Mir. Contemplative Disciplines in Sufism.

Part Four: Knowledge of Reality

God

Balyānī, Awḥad al-Dīn. Épître sur l’Unicité absolue.

Translated by M. Chodkiewicz. Paris: Les Deux Océans,
1982.

Corbin, H. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī.

Part 1, “Sympathy and Theopathy.”

Chittick, W. C. “Ṣadr al-Dīn Qunawī on the Oneness of

Being.” International Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1981)
171–84.

——. The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of

Rumi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1983. Part 1–C, pp. 42–58, “God and the World.”

McCarthy, R. J. Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated

Translation of al-Ghazālī’s al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl and
other Relevant Works of al-Ghazālī.

Al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn. Traité sur les Noms divins. Translated

by M. Gloton. Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1983.

Schuon, F. From the Divine to the Human. Translated by G.

Polit and D. Lambert. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom
Books, 1982. Part 2, “Divine and Universal Order.”

778
——. Sufism: Veil and Quintessence. Translated by W.
Stoddart. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom Books, 1981. Pp.
157–63, “Hypostatic Dimensions of Unity.”

Zia Ullah, Mohammad. Islamic Concept of God. Boston:

Kegan Paul International, 1984.

Angels

Calverly, E. E. “Nafs.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, old ed.,

3:827–30.

Chittick, W. C. The Sufi Path of Love.

Corbin, H. Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Translated by

W. Trask. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960. Chapter
2, “Avicennism and Angelology.”

——. En Islam iranien.

——. “Notes pour une étude d’angelologie islamique.” In

Anges, démons et êtres intermédiaires, 49–59. Paris:
Labergerie, 1969.

Gardet, L. “Les anges en Islam.” Studia missionalia 21 (1972)

207–27.

Jadaane, F “La place des anges dans la théologie cosmique

musulmane.” Studia Islamica 41 (1975) 23–61.

MacDonald, D. M. “Djinn.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed.,

2:546–48.

779
——. “Malāʾika.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, old ed., 3:189–92.

Mokri, M. “L’ange dans l’Islam et en Iran.” In Anges, démons

et êtres intermédiaires, 66–87.

Nasr, S. H. Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardī, Ibn

ʿArabī. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.

——. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines.

Pedersen, J. “Djabrāʾīl.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed.,

2:362–64.

Rāzī, Najm al-Dīn. Mirṣād al-ʿibād. Translated by H. Algar

[The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return].
Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1982. Pp. 80–93 et passim.

Schuon, F Dimensions of Islam. Chapter 8, “An-Nūr.”

Suhrawardī. The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of

Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi. Translated by W. H.
Thackston. London: Octagon Press, 1982.

Vajda, G. “Hārūt wa-Mārūt.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new

ed., 3:236–37.

Wensinck, A. J. “Isrāfīl.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed.,

4:211.

——. “ʿIzrāʾīl.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., 4:292–93.

The Cosmos and the Natural Order

780
Burckhardt, T. Alchemy. Translated by W. Stoddart.
Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1971.

Corbin, H. (with S. H. Nasr and O. Yahya). Histoire de la

philosophie islamique. Pp. 179–214, “Philosophie et science
de la nature.”

Meier, F. “The Problem of Nature in the Esoteric Monism of

Islam.” In Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos
Yearbooks, 149–203. Translated by R. Manheim. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954.

Nasr, S. H. Islamic Life and Thought. Pp. 200–206,

“Contemplation and Nature in Sufism.”

——. Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study. London: World

of Islam Festival Trust, 1976.

——. Science and Civilization in Islam. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1968.

——. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines.

Man

Corbin, H. The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Translated by

N. Pearson. Boulder, CO: Shambala, 1978.

Durand, G. Science de l’homme et tradition. Paris: Berg

International, 1979. Chapter 3, “Homo proximi orientis:
science de l’homme et Islam spiritual.”

781
Eaton, C. G. King of the Castle: Choice and Responsibility in
the Modern World. London: Bodley Head, 1977. Chapter 5,
“Man as Viceroy.”

Jīlī, ʿAbd al-Karīm. Universal Man. Translated by T.

Burckhardt. London: Beshara Publications, 1983.

Nasafī, ʿAzīz al-Dīn. Le Livre de l’homme parfait. Translated

by I. de Gastines. Paris: Fayard, 1984.

Nasr, S. H. “Who is Man: The Perennial Answer of Islam.”

Studies in Comparative Religion 2 (1968) 45–56.

Eschatology

Works dealing primarily with the Quran and the Ḥadīth

ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Aḥmad. Islamic Book of the Dead: Hadith

Concerning the Fire and the Garden. Translated by A. ʿAbd
al Rahman at-Tarjumana. Wood Dalling, England: Diwan
Press, 1977. Essentially the same work, attributed to
Abuʾl-Layth al-Samarqandī, was translated by J. Macdonald,
Islamic Studies 3 (1964) 285–308, 485–519; 4 (1965) 55–102,
137–79; 5 (1966) 129–97, 331–83.

Eklund, R. Life Between Death and Resurrection According

to Islam. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1941.

Gardet, L. “Ḥisāb.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed.,

3:465–66.

782
——. “Ḳiyāma.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., 5:235–38.

al-Ghazzālī. The Precious Pearl (al-Durra al-Fakhira).

Translated by J. I. Smith. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,
1981.

Meier, F “The Ultimate Origin and Hereafter in Islam.” In

Islam and its Cultural Divergence, 96–112. Edited by G. L.
Tikku. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971.

O’Shaughnessy, T. Muhammad’s Thoughts on Death: A

Thematic Study of the Qurʾanic Data. Leiden: Brill, 1969.

Rahman, F. Major Themes of the Qurʾān.

Sachedina, A. A. Islamic Messianism.

Smith, J. I., and Y. Y. Haddad. The Islamic Understanding of

Death and Resurrection. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1981.

Al-Tabrīzī. Mishkāt al-maṣābīḥ. Pp. 34–38, 320–70,

1120–1218.

Works dealing primarily with the developed eschatological

teachings

Avicenna. On Theology. Translated by A. J. Arberry. London:

John Murray, 1951. Pp. 64–76.

783
Chittick, W. C. “Death and the World of Imagination: Ibn
al-ʿArabī’s Eschatology.” Muslim World, forthcoming.

——. The Sufi Path of Love. Pp. 61–107, 173ff.

——. “A Sufi View of Islamic Eschatology: Rūmī on Death.”

Alserāt forthcoming.

Corbin, H. Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth. Translated by

N. Pearson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

De Bruijn, J. T. P. Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of

Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm
Sanāʾī of Ghazna. Leiden: Brill, 1983. Pp. 200–218.

Lory, P. Les Commentaires ésotériques du Coran d’après

ʿAbd ar-Razzāq al-Qāshānī. Pp. 107–21.

Mensia, M. “La Mort chez les Soufis.” IBLA 43 (1980)

205–44.

Mullā Ṣadrā. The Wisdom of the Throne. Translated by J. W.

Morris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Rahman, F. The Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā. Albany, NY:

State University of New York Press, 1975. Pp. 247–65.

Rāzī, Najm al-Dīn. Mirṣād al-ʿibād.

Schimmel, A. M. “Creation and Judgment in the Koran and in

Mystico-Poetical Interpretation.” In We Believe in One God,
149–80. Edited by A. M. Schimmel and A. Falaturi. New
York: Seabury, 1979.

784
Schuon, F. Dimensions of Islam. Pp. 136–41.

Taylor, J. B. “Some Aspects of Islamic Eschatology.”

Religious Studies 4 (1968) 57–76.

785
786
Contributors

SEYYED HUSSEIN NASR is University Professor of

Islamic Studies at George Washington University and a
former professor at Tehran University and Temple University
and president of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy. He is
the author of Ideals and Realities of Islam, Sufi Essays, and
Knowledge and the Sacred (the 1981 Gifford Lectures).

MOHAMMAD AJMAL is former professor and chairman of

the Department of Psychology of the University of the Punjab
in Lahore. He has served in many different capacities as an
educator and has devoted a lifetime of study to Sufi
psychology in relation to and in comparison with Western
psychology. He is the author of several works on this subject.

SYED ALI ASHRAF is a specialist from Bangladesh on

Islamic education. For many years professor in Dacca and
later in Saudi Arabia, he is now director of the Islamic
Academy in Cambridge (U.K.), editor of the Islamic
Education Series and The Muslim Education Quarterly, and
author of New Horizons in Muslim Education and Literary
Education and Religious Values.

787
ALLAHBAKHSH K. BROHI is one of Pakistan’s leading
thinkers, public figures, and philosophers. Brohi practices law
and has played a major role in the formulation of
constitutional laws in Pakistan, acting twice as federal
minister of law and religious affairs. He has lectured widely
throughout the Islamic world on the philosophy and
spirituality of Islam; his works include Islam in the Modern
World, A Testament of Faith, and A Faith to Live By.

SAADIA KHAWAR KHAN CHISHTI is professor at the

College of Education for Women in Lahore and the only
woman member of the Council of Islamic Ideology of
Pakistan. She has written several articles on education and
Sufism.

WILLIAM C. CHITTICK has been assistant professor of

religious studies at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook and is a former assistant professor at Aryamehr
University in Tehran. He is a specialist in Sufism, and his
works include The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings
of Rumi and a translation of Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī’s Divine
Flashes.

VICTOR DANNER is professor of religion and Islamic

studies at Indiana University. An authority on Sufism, he is
the translator of the Aphorisms of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī
and the author of The Islamic Tradition.

788
ABDUR-RAHMAN IBRAHIM DOI is professor in Islamics
and director of the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies at the
Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. A specialist in
Islamic Law, he is the author of Introduction to the Qurʾan,
The Cardinal Principles of Islam, Islam in Nigeria, and
numerous other books and articles on Islam, especially in its
African context.

CHARLES LE GAI EATON is the deputy director of the

Islamic Centre in London and the deputy editor of the Islamic
Quarterly. He has had long experience in the study of the
Islamic world, and his books include The King of the Castle
and Islam and the Destiny of Man.

ABDURRAHMAN HABIL is a Libyan scholar currently

writing a doctoral thesis on esoteric commentaries on the
Quran. Habil has been concerned for years with the study of
Quranic commentaries that have tried to bring out the inner
and spiritual significance of the Sacred Text.

SYED HUSAIN M. JAFRI is director of the Pakistan Study

Centre in the University of Karachi, coeditor of Hamdard
Islamicus, and a former professor of Islamic studies at the
Australian National University and the American University

789
of Beirut. His articles and books include The Origin and
Early Development of Shiʿa Islam.

JEAN-LOUIS MICHON is a French scholar who specializes

in Islam in North Africa, Islamic art, and Sufism. He has
participated in several UNESCO projects on Islamic art and is
the author of many works on Sufism and art, including Le
Soufi marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjiba and L’Autobiographie
(Fahrasa) du Soufi marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjiba (1747–1809).

SACHIKO MURATA has been assistant professor of

religious studies at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook and was formerly assistant director of the Japanese
Institute for West Asian Studies in Tehran. She is a specialist
in Islamic thought and jurisprudence and is the author of
several works in Japanese on Islam as well as a treatise in
Persian on Shīʿite laws of marriage.

Azim Nanji is associate professor of Islamic studies at

Oklahoma State University and a specialist in Ismāʿīlī thought
and history. He has published several works on Ismāʿīlism,
devoting himself especially to Ismāʿīlī writings in India.

JAʿFAR QASIMI is a Pakistani scholar of Islam and Sufism

who has spent years in the study of Sufism in the

790
subcontinent of India, especially in the Punjab, as well as in
the study of Sufi psychology. He is the author of several
monographs and articles on Islam and Sufism, including one
on Bābā Farīd Ganj-i Shikar, and has translated some Sufi
works into Urdu.

FRITHJOF SCHUON is the leading authority on the

perennial philosophy today. Schuon was born of German
parents in Switzerland and traveled widely in the Middle East
and North Africa, where he met the celebrated Algerian Sufi
Shaykh al-ʿAlawī. Schuon has written extensively on
questions of spirituality in general; his works dealing with
Islam include Understanding Islam, Dimensions of Islam,
Sufism: Veil and Quintessence, and Islam and the Perennial
Philosophy.

ABU BAKR SIRAJ ED-DIN is a well-known contemporary

authority on Sufism and the author of the classic work on
Sufism, The Book of Certainty. He has also contributed to
Studies in Comparative Religion and The Sword of Gnosis
(ed. J. Needleman).

791
792
Photographic Credits

The editor and the publisher wish to thank the custodians of

the works of art for supplying photographs and granting
permission to use them.

1. Topkapi Saray Museum.

2. By permission of The British Library.

3. By permission of The British Library.

4. Photography by Hans C. Seherr-Thoss.

5. Le Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

6. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

7. Le Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

8. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

9. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

10. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

793
11. Le Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

12. ARAMCO.

13. Editions Atelier 74—Le Paccard, Annecy.

14. Photograph by K. O’Brien.

15. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

16. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

17. ARAMCO.

18. From “Islam: An Introduction,” courtesy of The American

Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington, D.C.

19. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

20. From “Islam: An Introduction,” courtesy of The American

Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington, D.C.

21. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

22. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

23. Photograph by Ulku Bates.

794
24. Islamic Art Archive, Asian Photographic Distribution,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

25. Reproduced by courtesy of The Trustees of The British

Museum.

26. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Arthur A.

Houghton, Jr., 1970.

27. By permission of The British Library.

28. By permission of The British Library.

29. Private collection.

30. Le Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

31. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

32. Photograph by Roland Michaud.

33. The American Institute for Islamic Affairs, Washington,

D.C.

34. By permission of The British Library.

35. By permission of The British Library.

795
796
Indexes

Subjects

ablutions, 79, 111, 140

academies and schools, 15, 253, 254, 257, 260

afterlife, 18, 122, 139, 155, 156. See also death; eschatology;
resurrection

Age of Ignorance, 89

angels, 3, 4, 14, 22, 56; Bābā Afḍal on, 337–38; bodily organs
and, 336; cherubim among, 330, 332; cosmological role of,
324–25, 327–28; Farghānī on, 333–35, 342; as a guide against
evil, 128, 328; Hagar and, 65; Iblis (Satan) as an, 14–15, 330,
338, 360; Ibn ʿArabī on, 333, 341–42; intellect, microcosm
and, 335–36; Jāmī on, 342–43; mankind and, 14–15, 338,
340–43; Muḥammad and, 3, 4, 76, 78, 239, 266, 325–27;
al-Qūnawī on, 330, 332–33, 335; Quranic references to,
324–26; Suhrawardī on, 329–30

Arabic, 3, 4, 26, 28, 31, 171

art, 8–9, 57–58, 237, 349

ascension, 3, 14, 60, 61, 78–80, 190

ascesis, 49, 59

797
asceticism, 249, 252–53, 285

awareness, 11, 12, 22, 88, 134; and Adam’s return to grace,
190; between man and God, 157, 275

barzakh, 390–91, 395, 397, 401–2

beauty, 54, 56, 59, 61, 98–100, 138

being, states of, 56, 61, 62, 78, 100, 138; perfection and, 212;
soul and, 298

caliphs, 3, 59, 95, 148–50, 154

calligraphy, 4, 5, 58

caves, 3, 60, 82

certitude, 53, 54, 56, 57

charity (zakāt), 83, 91, 100, 101, 141–42, 168

Christianity, 4, 52, 73, 76, 150, 286; and Islamic motherhood,

204; Jesus, death of al-Ḥallāj and, 258–59; and mankind’s
status, 363, 366

circumambulation of the Kaʿbah, 66, 120, 122, 125

companions of the Prophet, 3, 29, 30, 82, 85

798
constitution of Medina, 83

converts, 85, 86, 88, 193

cosmos, 5, 9, 41, 42, 50; angelic role in the, 324–25, 327–28;

Farghāni’s angelology and the, 333–35; God as the originator
of the, 188, 232; Ḥadīth on the nature of the, 106, 107; Ibn
ʿArabī’s doctrines of the, 333, 346–47, 353–54; and Ibn
Sīnā’s doctrines, 329, 352–53; Muḥammad’s journey through
the, 78–80; al-Qūnawī on the, 330, 332–33; Quran and the
revelation of the, 345–46

cultured behavior (adab) 101–2, 373–74

Day of Judgment, 138, 139, 153, 154, 211, 279–80. See also
barzakh; death, eschatology; hell; paradise; resurrection

death, 3, 5, 42, 92–93, 104, 129; angelic questioning after,

380, 397–98; and the angel of death (ʿIzrāʾīl), 328, 380;
awareness of one’s body after, 380; barzakh and, 390–91,
395, 397; dreams, sleep and, 395–96; of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī,
168, 170; and knowledge of God, 323; occultation of
Muḥammad al-Mahdī and, 172, 173; resurrection of the body
and soul after, 380, 389–91, 402–5; stations of the soul after,
337–38

degrees of the excellences (darajāt), 79

Descent, the, 3, 60, 61

determinism, 8, 106, 128, 153, 156, 320

799
devotional literature, 177–78

dhikr (remembrance of God), 134, 215, 216, 223, 227, 228;

Divine names and, 318–19; Islamic mysticism, Sufism and,
243, 263, 275–77, 290; liturgical invocations and, 275–77,
286–89

Divine Law (Sharīʿah), 8, 15, 18, 19, 22, 39. See also law,
Islamic; conflict with Sufis and doctors of, 256–59, 261;
Ḥadīth and codification of, 106; Ismāʿīlī doctrines of, 185; as
the matrix of Islamic life, 97; Shīʿite interpretations of,
172–73; transcendence of God in; 116; women as followers
of, 203, 213–15

Divine Throne, 3, 50, 78, 79; circumambulation of the Kaʿbah

and, 120, 122, 125; stations behind the, 124

Divine Will, 4, 6, 128, 152, 312

Divine Word, 3–5, 18, 20, 22, 23, 104

eschatology, 5, 7, 249, 325, 378–79; bodily resurrection, the

soul and, 389–91; justice, equilibrium and, 392–93;
resurrection doctrines and, 380–83; and stages of man’s
existence, 384–86

esoterism, 49, 62, 165, 223, 226–28, 235–37. See also

mysticism; and Ḥadīth, 28–29; philosophy and, 35–36; Sufis
and, 30–34, 39–40, 231, 232; symbolism and, 25–28, 41;
Twelve-Imam Shrites and, 25, 29–31, 36–39; “two seas”
symbolism and, 41–42; Unity doctrine (tawhid) and, 239–40

800
ethics, 6–8, 12, 14, 22, 97

ethnicity, 88

exegesis, 24–25, 38, 43, 105; esoteric, 38, 40–41, 43; exoteric
forms of, 29, 31–33, 36, 38, 40–41, 43; Ḥadīth and, 28–29;
hermeneutics and, 25, 33, 34, 36, 37, 43 (see also
hermeneutics); historical transmission of, 29–34; Ismāʿīlī
hermeneutical analysis and, 185; knowledge as the goal of,
43; and the Nahj al-balāghah, 174, 176; of philosophers Ibn
Sīnā and Suhrawardī, 35–36; of Shīʿites, 25, 28–30, 34,
36–39; of Sufis, 25, 30–34, 36, 37, 39–40; symbolism and,
25–28, 41; theosophy and, 35, 37; of “two seas” verse, 41–42

exoteric commentaries, 27, 33, 38, 40–41; of al-Qushayrī, 32;

and conflicts with Sufis, 256–59; esotericism and, 29, 32, 36

exoterism, 41, 43, 212, 223, 226–28, 236; first pillar of Islam
and, 230; and reconciliation with Sufism, 260–62; Sufis,
universality and, 231–32; Unity doctrine (tawhid) and,
239–40

faith, 20, 22, 23, 35, 49, 190; merits of, 54, 56; in
Muḥammad, 61; Murjiʾites doctrine of, 154–55

family of the Prophet, 65–68, 70–74, 161–62, 164, 165;

martyrdom of Ḥusayn within, 168, 170; subsidization for,
168; women within, 199, 203, 206

Farewell Sermon, 89–90

801
fasting, 59, 83, 118–19, 227–28

femininity, 4, 27, 56, 58–59, 199–200, 316. See also women

fervor, 52–53

forgiveness, 109, 112, 120, 122, 201, 320

gnosticism, 33, 35–37, 186, 202, 249–50, 253; Sufi mystical

experience and, 257, 261, 354; in the works of al-Niffarī,
260–61

God, 3–5, 7, 8, 102; Adam and, 14, 22, 122, 330, 360–62; the
afterlife and, 18; and the battle of Badr, 85, 325; and
contemplation of Him during prayer, 116; as the Creator, 316,
347; Divine Names of, 275–77, 312, 318–21, 384; Divine
Nature of, 311–12, 315–16; duties in the worship of, 167–68;
establishment of the Imamate by, 166–67; and the family of
the Prophet, 161–62, 165; the family and, 207–8; fasting and,
118–19; feminine aspects of, 316; and the heart; 296; logos
and, 48–49; invocation of, 275–77, 286–89; jihād and, 125,
126; love of, 59, 108, 212, 321; man’s link with, 265–66;
martyrdom status and, 129; as Master of all, 136, 138, 153,
265, 319; meeting with, 19, 89, 132; mercy of, 14, 53, 54,
107–9, 116, 317–18; oneness of, 6–7, 9, 50, 230, 312–15; as
the Originator, 188–89, 311; prayers and, 109, 112, 114–16,
132–33; Prophet’s Ascension to, 3, 14, 60, 61, 78–80;
proximity to, 224–25, 267; remembrance of, 7, 53, 100, 102,
128 (see also dhikr; prayer); repentance and, 14; rhythmic
calling of, 282; Satan and, 14–15, 128; slavery to, 201–2, 224,

802
225, 359; surrender to, 115, 118, 119; taqwā and, 157;
women’s nearness to, 201, 205, 215; wrath of, 393–95

grace, 3, 14, 49, 61

growth, 12, 15, 133–34

Ḥadīth, 5, 7, 8, 28–29, 32, 33; codifying of, 104–6; Divine

Sayings and, 107–9; on martyrs, 129; on mercy, 53, 109, 320,
393; on Prophet’s three loves, 58–60; on proximity to God,
201; Shīʿite collections of, 107, 173–74, 176; Six Authentic
Works of, 147, 150; Sunnah and, 97, 102; on three stages of
Islam, 278; universality of, 106–7; Western criticism of,
105–6

Hanbalites, 32, 40, 256, 262

heart (qalb), 112, 114–16, 122, 295–98

hell and damnation, 78, 104, 325, 397, 402, 405

heresy, 183, 184, 258

hermeneutics, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 43; inner meaning and, 191;
Sharīʿah and, 185

history, 7, 25, 29–34, 37, 105, 188, 189

hypocrites, 84, 85, 214

803
idolatry, 67, 72, 77, 88

Imams, 29, 36–39, 105, 106, 116; Ismāʿīlī, 179–81, 184–85;

as prayer leaders, 131, 140; Shīʿite doctrines on, 149, 165–67,
171–72

immanence, 48, 50, 51, 61, 99, 314–15, 323

immortality, 43, 53, 54, 129

intellect, 107, 157, 172, 190, 195, 328, 335

illumination, 111–12, 157, 321–22, 329, 353

Islam, 3–8, 24, 83, 106, 406; art of, 8–9, 57–58; cosmology
of, 350, 352; dream concepts of, 305, 395; emulating
Muḥammad in, 100–2, 361–65; Fāṭimah and, 207–8; Fāṭimid
Empire and, 180–82, 185; five pillars of, 83, 230, 242, 266;
Followers of the Companions in, 247–49; growth of, 150–52;
Ḥusayn’s martyrdom in, 168, 170; Ismāʿīlism and, 180, 181,
184–86; man’s role in, 358–59, 366, 368; Mecca and, 65–67,
76–77, 80, 82, 83; modernization, Sufism and, 237, 290–91;
Muʿtazilites and, 155–56, 164–65, 168, 256; Nahj
al-balāghah and, 174, 176; Nizārīs and, 182–83; Oneness of
God and, 312–15; People of the Book and, 86; philosophers
of, 35–36, 105; priests and, 371–72; primordial religion and,
370–71; Prophet’s successors and, 148–50, 162, 164, 165,
179; Rābiʿah’s role in, 208–11; sects in, 154–55, 252;
self-improvement and, 19; and spiritual reality, 88;
Twelve-Imam Shīʿites and, 36–39, 105, 160–61; Western
studies of, 105–6; women’s role in, 199–200, 216–18

804
Ismāʿīlism, 25, 38–39, 179–81, 184–86, 193–96, 352; Fāṭimid
Empire and, 180, 185; hostility to, 182–84; and Nizārīs,
182–83; Yemenites and, 181–82

Jews, 66, 83, 84, 86, 135

jihād, 53, 84–86, 88, 125–26, 128–29, 167, 228

jinns, 128, 332, 338

Kaʿbah, 66–68, 70, 72, 73, 83; circumambulation of, 120,

122, 124–25; purification of, 88

knowledge 6, 22, 43, 56, 57, 254, 349; angels and, 328–29;
God and, 319–20; Ḥadīth and, 106, 107; and illumination,
321–22, 328–29; and Imams, 165–66; man and, 190, 369; of
nature, 347; reconciliation of, 156; self-mastery and, 285–86;
Sufism and, 234

law, Islamic, 97, 106, 149, 152–53, 159, 239, 256–59. See
also Divine Law

literature 171, 173–74, 176–78, 184–86, 217, 256–57; of

al-Ghazzālī, 261–62, 288; on good company, 273–74; hymns
in, 280–81; on mysticism 245, 269; inner consciousness in,
193–96; poetry in, 195–96, 235, 258; of reconciliation,
260–62

805
liturgy, 60, 274–78, 286–89, 301

logos, 48–49, 53, 62

love, 16, 18, 50, 58–60, 64; of God, 59, 108, 212, 321;
Rābiʿah and, 210–11, 250; Sufi concept of, 234, 297

mankind, 16, 18–20, 22, 41, 358; angels and, 14–15, 338,
340–43, 360–61; centrality, totality and, 368–70; Christian
views of, 363, 366; as craftsmen, 372–73; in emulation of
Muḥammad, 361–65; as God’s creation, 232; manners and
morals of, 373–74; potentiality of, 386, 388; religious
consciousness of, 11–12; vicegerency of, 370, 373, 375–76

martyrs, 59, 85, 91, 129, 168, 170, 257–59

mercy, 14, 53, 54, 107–9, 320; of God, 392–95; in literature,

176, 177; the Prophet and, 112, 116

ministry of the Prophet, 16, 18, 20, 28–29, 43–44; and his
Ascension, 78–80, 109, 298, 325; and his boyhood, 72–73;
and his character, 58–59; and his Companions, 3, 29, 30, 82,
244–47, 268; and constitution of Medina, 83; early years of,
76–78; and the Helpers, 82, 92; and human relationships of
Muḥammad, 363–64; and his immanence, 48, 50, 51, 61, 99;
jihād and, 84–86, 88, 126; last days of, 90–92, 94–95; his
lineage and, 63–68, 70–72; and love of him, 64, 109, 212,
321; Mecca and, 83–86; Medina and, 82–83; and his other
names, 60–61, 64, 99–100; persecution during, 76–78; and his
physical perfection, 98–99; Quranic revelations and, 3, 4, 76;
and his retreats, 3, 74, 76, 268; and his slaves, 74; his

806
Substance and, 3, 48, 57, 58, 61–62; Sunnah and, 97–98, 102,
241; Syrian expedition and, 90, 92; his three loves and,
58–60; his transcendence and, 50, 51, 99; verifying his
sayings during, 104–6; his wives and, 57, 59, 73–74, 76, 83,
91

modernization, 237, 290

mosques, 92, 94, 114, 131, 349

motherhood, 203–6

mysticism, 48, 49, 51–52, 62, 108, 268; the Companions and,
244–47; excellence and, 231; among Followers of the
Companions, 247–49; Islamic form of, 215, 259, 261; poverty
and, 266–67; Quran, Sunnah, and, 240–41; remembrance of
God (dhikr) and, 243, 263, 275–77; Sufism and, 231–33,
244–45, 258, 259, 274–75

Nahj al-balāghah (al-Raḍī), 174, 176, 245

nature, human and animal, 11, 20, 100, 212, 214, 375

night, 3, 60, 78–80, 109, 235

number symbolism, 50–51, 184, 350, 353

obedience, 16, 18, 22, 83, 118; of angels, 340–41; to a

shaykh, 271, 272

807
origination doctrines, 188, 232–33, 283–84

paganism, 67, 72, 77, 88

Paradise, 50, 78, 111, 119, 129; delights of, 381, 405; nature
and 354; Riḍwān and, 224–26, 230, 235, 325; Sharīʿah and,
241

perfume, 57–59, 79, 228

philosophy, 20, 35–37, 105, 107, 254; of Ibn Sīnā, 329,

352–53, 386; Muʿtazilites and, 155–56, 254; Neoplatonists
and, 254, 260, 268; synthesis in, 156

pilgrimage, 66–68, 85, 88–89, 228; Kaʿbah and, 66, 120, 122,
125; Meccan rituals of, 119–20; of Shīʿites, 171–72;
symbolisms of, 66, 124, 125

poetry, 195–96, 235, 258, 280–81

prayers, 4, 7, 48, 52, 53, 66, 70, 79; and ablution, 111–12;
charity and, 141–42; cosmic participants in, 142–43; for
forgiveness and mercy, 109, 112, 132; Friday and, 142, 153;
God during, 115–17, 138–39; institutional and ritual form of,
135–36, 192; for man’s growth, 133–34; movement and
positions during, 131, 140, 142, 191, 192; Muḥammad and,
58–60, 76, 78; qalb and, 114, 122; Quranic verses and,
131–34; self-extinction, submission and, 115, 116, 118;
Sufism and, 226, 227; supplication and, 176–78; time stages
and, 191; women and, 215

808
Prophet, the. See ministry of the Prophet; quotations of the
Prophet; family of the Prophet

prophets, 6, 15, 20, 39, 86, 133; Abraham among, 140,

161–62; Adam; 366; cosmic time cycles and, 189, 190;
Moses among, 86, 143; Muḥammad among, 86, 162, 164

purification, 61, 84, 88, 120, 126, 141–42

quotations of the Prophet, 126, 128, 129, 147–48, 200–1. See

also Ḥadīth; on angels, 325, 326, 332, 340; on excellence,
230–31

Quran, 3–5, 44, 161–62, 223–27, 287; angels and, 324–26,

333, 334; cosmology and, 350, 355; on death and
resurrection, 379–82, 390; invocation and, 275–76;
knowledge and, 320, 350; as law and doctrinal source, 6–8,
43, 152–53, 239–40; on God’s nature, 313–14, 319–21, 323;
Ismāʿīl in, 66; other names of, 6–7; outward and inward
aspects of, 28, 29; primordiality and, 232–33; Prophet’s
successor and, 148–49; revelation and, 23, 345–46, 349; sick
hearts and, 300; taqwā and, 158; Ṭarīqah and, 8, 22; on
transience of nature, 347–48; “two seas” verse of, 41–42;
universality and, 231–32; women’s role and, 200–5, 212–13

Quraysh tribesmen, 67–68, 70–72, 85, 86

rationalism, 155, 254, 256

809
reality, 9, 40, 64, 88, 104, 322

repentance, 14, 90, 135, 299–300, 382

resurrection, 153, 164, 189, 283, 380; body, soul and, 380,
389–91, 402; Greater form of, 400–2, Lesser form of 398,
400, 402

revelation, 3–6, 8, 12, 20, 227, 231–32

rituals, 48, 66, 106, 111–12, 115; prayer and, 135–36, 142,
191–93; of Shīʿtes, 167; of Sufi initiation, 270–71; women
and, 212

sainthood, 216–18, 225, 348

Satanic manifestations, 90, 120, 122, 125, 189

selfhood (nafs), 19, 53, 128, 129, 136, 295–97

Shīʿism, 8, 25, 28–30, 34, 49, 147; cosmology of, 354;

doctrines of, 164–65; Muḥammad’s successors and, 148, 149;
mysticism and, 247–48; religious duties of, 167–68; and the
rise of Sufism, 253–55

sin, 104, 111, 112, 118, 119, 122, 374; of avarice, 91, 114;
concepts of, 154–55

slavery, 74, 89, 115, 136, 201–2; of mankind to God, 224,

225, 359, 363

810
soul, 5–7, 53, 84, 101–2, 114, 122; heart and, 295–98; of the
Prophet, 8, 9, 49, 53, 298; psychotherapy and, 294, 300, 305,
306; sickness of, 300–1; stages of, 128, 295–97, 389; Sufi
science of, 294, 298–99, 302, 305–6, 385; therapy of, 301–4;
thought and, 295

spirituality, 3, 4, 8, 9, 49–50; acceptance and, 303; confession

and, 302–3; cultured behavior (adab) and, 101–2; faith and,
22–23; God’s slavery covenant and, 201–2; growth and,
11–12, 15; Ḥadīth as form of, 106, 107; higher states of, 11,
12, 14, 19, 22; love of God and, 64; materialism and, 197;
nature, cosmology and, 348–49, 354–55; oneness of God and,
312–13; paths of action and, 241–42; the Prophet and, 64, 97,
241; pilgrimage and, 125; questioning and, 304; Quran and,
43; Sufism and, 255–56, 284–85; Sunnism and, 100–1,
157–58, 241; of women, 199–200, 203–5, 208–11

stations, 48, 50, 51, 54, 124

substance, 3, 48–51, 57, 58, 61–62, 97

Sufism, 8, 25, 99, 152, 157, 256, 257; bodily movement and,
235–36; brotherhoods of, 270–75; conflicts of, 256–59;
contemplation and, 243–44, 246; dreams and, 305;
eschatology of, 383, 384, 394; essence doctrines and, 234,
236; extinction and, 234; formalism and, 257–59; foundations
of, 239, 242–43; al-Ghazzālī and, 261–62, 269, 288; gnostic
doctrines and, 36, 37, 249–50, 253, 257; and God’s nature,
312, 322; and al-Ḥallāj, 257–59; and heart, 295–98; hymns
of, 280, 281; literature of, 256–58, 260–62, 280–81;
modernization and, 237, 290–91; musical liturgy of, 280–81,
283–84; mysticism and, 231–33, 244–45, 258, 259;
obligatory practices of, 228; origin of name of, 250, 252–53,

811
267; poverty and, 267; primordiality and, 232–33; and
resurrection of the body, 493–94; rise of, 252–56; rituals and
retreats of, 226–27, 270–71; sages of, 247; selflessness of,
269; silsilah (initiation) of, 243–44, 246, 247, 263, 270–71;
spiritual masters of, 271–73, 285; Sunnism and, 158–59;
voluntary practices of, 226–28; whirling dervishes and, 236,
272, 275, 281–84

Sunnism, 8, 30, 36, 49, 104, 249; Abbasid caliphate and, 150;
beliefs and practices within, 153–54; growth of Islam and,
150–52; in Moorish Spain, 150; schools of law and, 106,
152–53; successors of Muḥammad and, 148–50; Sufism and,
158–59, 248; Sunnah and, 28, 48, 51, 90, 97, 147, 239

symbolism, 25–29, 35, 41, 50–53, 88, 194

ṭarīqah (the way), 8, 22

taxation, religious, 83, 86, 168

theology, 105–7, 155, 156, 173, 176, 260

theosophy, 35–37, 39, 176

transcendence, 48, 50, 51, 99, 116, 138, 139; of God, 187–88,
314, 322–23; Sufis on, 315

Twelver Shīʿites, 36–39, 105, 160–61, 167, 168

812
Unity doctrines, 6, 7, 9, 48, 49; cosmological order and,
187–88; esoterism, exoterism and, 239–40; God and, 50, 108,
109, 211; mysticism, Sufism and, 243, 263–64, 322; passive
and active forms of, 54; prayer and; 114, 116; science of
hermeneutics and, 186

vigil, 59, 226, 227, 286

virtue, 100, 101, 104, 112, 138, 242, 266

visions, 116, 119, 125, 138–39, 155–56; of Muḥammad, 3,

76, 78–80; of al-Muṭṭalib, 68–70

women, 4, 59, 89–90, 207–8. See also femininity;

complementary nature of, 204, 212; deterministic nature of,
214; God’s slavery covenant and, 201–2, 217–18; household
duties of, 203; Rābiʿah among, 208–11; religious training of,
215–16; ritual exemptions of, 212; sainthood and, 216–18;
spiritual equality of, 203–6, 212–13, 217; Zubaydah’s virtues
among, 208–9

Zamzam, well of, 66–68, 70, 120, 125, 209

Names

ʿAbd Allāh, 70, 71, 72, 99

813
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72

Abū ʿAlī Sīnā. See Ibn Sīnā

Abū Bakr, 60, 76, 82, 83, 91, 94, 95, 148, 149, 245, 246, 247,
268

Abū Dāʾūd, 147

Abū Ḥanīfah, Imām, 150, 172, 393, 407

Abū Hurayrah, 142, 227, 236, 245, 246, 268

Abū Jahl, 85

Abū Lahab, 77

Abuʾl-Dardāʾ, 276

Abū Mālik, 194

Abū Sufyān, 86

Abū Ṭālib, 70, 72, 74, 77, 260

Abū Yazīd of Basṭām. See Bāyazīd Basṭāmī

al-ʿAdawiyyah, Rābiʿah. See Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyyah

ʿĀʾishah, 47, 57, 83, 91, 94, 95, 206, 216, 218, 245, 327, 338,
362

al-ʿAjamī, Ḥabīb, 249

814
al-ʿAjamī, Sidi Yūsuf, 293

al-ʿAlawī, Shaykh Aḥmad, 37, 40, 48, 61, 235, 323

ʿAlī ibn Abi Ṭālib, 3, 29, 30, 76, 77, 82, 85, 86, 88, 91, 94,
95, 98, 147, 148, 149, 154, 160, 161, 162, 165, 166, 168, 172,
173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180, 184, 207, 245, 246, 268, 287,
290, 313, 380, 382

ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā, 149

al-Alūsī, Shihāb al-Dīn, 39, 40, 46

Amīn, 209

Āminah, 71, 72

al-Āmir, 181

Amīr al-Muʾminīn, 180

ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, 86

ʿAmr ibn Unaysah, 76

Āmulī, Sayyid Ḥaydar, 354, 400, 408

al-Anṣārī, Abū Ayyūb, 82

al-Anṣārī of Herat, Khwājah ʿAbd Allāh, 32, 33, 40, 300

ʿAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, 238

Avicenna. See Ibn Sīnā

815
ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī, 397, 406, 408

Bābā Ṭāhir of Hamadān, 398

Baghdādī, ʿAbd al-Qādir, 291

Bahīrah, 73

Bāhū, Sulṭān, 205

al-Balkhī, Shaqīq, 249

al-Balyānī, Awḥad al-Dīn, 293, 313, 323

al-Bāqir, Imam Muḥammad, 29, 160

Baqlī, Rūzbihān, 33, 41

al-Baṣrī, Sumnūn ibn Hamzah, 234

Basṭāmī, Bāyazīd, 158, 224, 257, 322, 405

al-Bayḍāwī, 335

al-Bayhaqī, Aḥmad, 238, 292

Bilāl, 76, 88, 268

al-Bukhārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad, 74, 104, 107, 147,

159, 238

al-Būṣīrī, Shaykh, 281

816
al-Dabbāghī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, 305

Dāmād, Mīr, 176

al-Dārānī, Abū Sulaymān, 202

al-Dārīmī, 104

al-Darqāwī, Shaykh al-ʿArabī, 303

al-Daqqāq, Abū ʿAlī, 277

al-Dihlawī, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq, 39

Dhuʾl-Nūn al-Miṣrī, 30, 31, 257

al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr, 35, 46, 352, 403

al-Farghānī, Saʿīd al-Dīn, 333, 334, 335, 341, 342, 344, 407

al-Fāriḍ, ʿUmar ibn. See Ibn al-Fāriḍ

al-Fārsī, Salmān, 245, 246

Fāṭimah, 59, 63, 70, 91, 94, 161, 165, 168, 171, 173, 179,
180, 207, 208, 217, 245, 246, 247

817
al-Ghazzālī, Abū Ḥāmid, 22, 28, 32, 41, 44, 47, 105, 156,
260, 261, 262, 264, 269, 288, 292, 313, 323, 335, 350, 359,
380, 383, 392, 393, 395, 396, 398, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406,
407, 408, 409

Ḥabīb of Tetuan, 295

al-Ḥāfī, Bishr, 257

Ḥafṣah bint ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, 91

Ḥāfiz Shīrāzī, 302

al-Ḥākim, Imam, 181

Ḥākim ibn Ḥizam, 74

Hālah, 71

Ḥalīmah, 72

al-Ḥallāj, 31, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 264, 322

al-Ḥamidī, 189

Ḥamzah, 82, 85, 91

Ḥaqqī, Ismāʿīl, 39, 40, 46

Ḥārith, 70

Ḥārithah, 74

818
al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, 160

al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, 31, 247, 248, 250, 252, 287

al-Hasan al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn. See al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad

ibn al-Ḥasan

al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, 160, 161, 207, 246, 247

Ḥasanī, Taqī al-Dīn, 213, 219

Hāshim, 67, 68

Ḥaydar Āmulī, 37

al-Hujwīrī, ʿAlī, 270, 291

al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, 29, 160, 161, 168, 170, 171, 207, 246, 247

al-Ḥusaynī, Shāh Karīm, 183

Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh, 29, 327, 328, 381

Ibn al-ʿAbbās, al-Faḍl, 91, 95

Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Shaykh Muḥammad, 153

Ibn Abī Jumhūr, 403

Ibn ʿAjībah, Aḥmad, 273, 286, 292, 293

819
Ibn ʿArabī, Muhyī al-Dīn, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 45, 47,
176, 224, 234, 236, 237, 272, 333, 341, 342, 344, 346, 353,
354, 357, 363, 383, 384, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391, 393, 394,
395, 400, 401, 402, 405, 407, 408, 409

Ibn al-ʿArīf, 48

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī, 28, 34, 44, 45, 285, 286, 292,
323

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Baghdādī, 30, 31

Ibn Bābūyah al-Qummī, Muḥammad, 105

Ibn al-Fāriḍ, ʿUmar, 234, 290, 292

Ibn Ḥanbal, Imam Aḥmad, 150, 172, 238

Ibn Ḥazm, 341

Ibn Hishām, 206

Ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nuʿmānī, Muḥammad. See Qāḍī Nuʿmān

Ibn ʿIyāḍ, Fuḍayl, 249

Ibn al-Jawzī, 262

Ibn Karrām, 257

Ibn Kathīr, 84

Ibn Mājah, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad, 109, 147

820
Ibn Mashīsh, ʿAbd al-Salām, 287

Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh, 29

Ibn Sālim, Muḥammad, 260

Ibn Sīnā, Abū ʿAlī, 34, 35, 36, 46, 156, 328, 329, 337, 352,
353, 386, 398, 403, 404, 406, 409

Ibn Sīrīn, 395

Ibn Ziyād, 170, 177

Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, 249

Iṣfahānī, Abuʾl-Ḥasan Sharīf ʿĀmilī, 39

Iṣfahānī, Ṣāʾin al-Dīn ʿAlī, 37

Ismāʿīl, 179

Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, 249, 252, 277, 352

Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib, 77

Jāmī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 39, 335, 342, 344, 385, 406, 407

al-Jazūlī, Ibn Sulaymān, 293

Jīlānī, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir, 112, 114, 125, 130, 260, 262,
270, 278

821
al-Jīlī, ʿAbd al-Karīm, 354, 393, 401, 407, 408

al-Junayd, Abuʾl-Qāsim, 31, 259, 289

al-Kalābādhī, Muḥammad, 261

al-Karkhī, Maʿrūf, 249, 269

al-Kāshānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, 33, 34, 398

Kāshānī, Bābā Afḍal (Afḍal al-Dīn), 337, 344

Kāshānī, ʿIzz al-Dīn, 326, 383

Kāshānī, Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ, 37, 39, 41

Kāshifī, Kamāl al-Dīn, 39

al-Kāẓim, Imam Mūsā, 160

Khadījah, 59, 73, 74, 76, 77, 83, 205, 206, 245

Khālid ibn Saʿīd ibn ʿAṣ, 76

Khālid ibn Walīd, 85, 86

al-Khalwatī, ʿUmar, 287, 293

al-Kharrāz, Abū Saʿīd, 31

al-Khaṭṭab, ʿUmar ibn. See ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb

822
al-Kindī, Abū Yaʿqūb, 156, 254, 352

Kirmānī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn, 186, 187, 188, 190, 352

al-Kisāʾī, 360, 361, 376

Kubrā, Najm al-Dīn, 33

al-Kulaynī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb, 105, 107, 173

Lāhījī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, 408

al-Maghribī, al-Nuʿmān ibn Ḥayyun. See Qāḍī Nuʿmān

al-Mahdī, Muḥammad, al-Qāʾim al-Ḥujjah, 161, 166, 167,

172, 173

al-Majīd, ʿAbd, 181

al-Makkī, Abū Ṭālib, 260, 261

Mālik ibn Anas, Imām, 104, 147, 150, 172

Maʾmūn, 209

Maybudī, Rashīd al-Dīn, 32, 33, 40, 45, 338, 344, 401

Muʿāwiyah, 154, 168

823
Muḥammad (the Prophet), passim. See also index of subjects:
ministry of the Prophet; quotations of the Prophet; family of
the Prophet

al-Muḥāsibī, Sufi Ḥārith ibn Asad, 256, 293

Mukhayriq, 84

Mullā Ṣadrā, 37, 176, 350, 354, 357, 385, 389, 390, 391, 392,
393, 402, 403, 406, 407, 409

al-Mursī, Abuʾl-ʿAbbās, 28, 34, 285

Mūsā al-Kāẓim (Imam), 179, 254

Muslim, Abuʾl-Ḥusayn ʿAsākir al-Dīn, 104, 147

al-Mustaʿlī, 181

al-Mustanṣir, Imam, 181

al-Muʿtazilī, Abiʾl-Ḥadīd, 174

al-Muṭṭalib, ʿAbd. See ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib

al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī, 280

al-Naqī, Imam ʿAlī, 160

al-Nasafī, 188

Nasafī, ʿAzīz al-Dīn, 336, 340, 344, 355, 385, 400, 406, 408

824
Nasafī, Najm al-Dīn, 379

al-Nasāʾī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 104, 147

Nāṣir-i Khusraw, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 192, 193, 195, 198,
352

Nawfal, 68

Nayshābūrī, Niẓām al-Dīn, 39, 40, 46

al-Niffarī, 260, 261, 394, 408

Nizār, 181

Nufaysah, 73

Qāḍī Nuʿmān, 30, 38, 39, 46, 190, 191

al-Qaranī, Uways, 88

al-Qazwīnī, 326, 343

al-Qūmī, Abū Yaʿqūb, 272

al-Qummī, Shaykh al-Ṣadūq ibn Bābawayh, 173

al-Qūnawī, Ṣadr al-Dīn, 33, 34, 45, 330, 332, 333, 335, 341,
344, 354, 397, 400, 402, 403, 405, 406, 408, 409

Qusayy, 71

825
al-Qushayrī, Abuʾ1–Qāsim, 32, 33, 40, 45, 48

Qutaylah, 71, 72

Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyyah, 208, 209, 210, 211, 249, 250, 258

al-Raḍī, Sayyid Sharīf, 174, 245

al-Raʾīs, al-Shaykh. See Ibn Sīnā

Rāzī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad Zakariyyāʾ, 187

al-Rāzī, Abū Ḥātim, 352

al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn, 313, 323

Rāzī, Najm al-Dīn, 33, 40, 385, 402

al-Riḍā, Imam ʿAlī, 160, 171, 173, 254

Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 8, 34, 37, 45, 105, 136, 236, 270, 272,
283, 284, 297, 298, 299, 335, 338, 340, 344, 376, 388, 390,
396, 397, 403, 407, 408

Ṣabbaḥ, Ḥasan-i, 182, 183

al-Ṣādiq, Imam Jaʿfar, 29, 30, 31, 160, 173, 179, 190, 249,
252, 254, 380, 381

Ṣafiyyah, 91

826
Salmā, 68

Salman, 85

Salmān al-Fārsī, 88

Sanāʾī, 388, 397, 407, 408

Sanūsī, Sī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn, 293

al-Sarrāj, Abū Naṣr, 250, 261

al-Saqaṭī, Sarī, 257

al-Sayyid al-Sajjād. See Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn

Shabistarī, Maḥmūd, 109, 201, 313

al-Shādhilī, Abuʾl-Ḥasan, 34, 270, 287

al-Shāfiʿī, Imam, 150, 172

Shāh, Ḥasan ʿAlī, 183

Shāh, Sir Sulṭan Muḥammad, 183, 197

Shaybah, 68

al-Shiblī, Abū Bakr, 31

Shīrāzī, al-Muʾayyad fiʾl-dīn, 189

Shīrāzī, Ṣadr al-Dīn. See Mullā Ṣadrā

827
al-Ṣiddīq, Abū Bakr, 149

al-Sijistānī, Abū Dāʾūd, 104

al-Sijistānī, Abū Yaʿqūb, 186, 187, 188

Simnānī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dawlah, 33, 34

Sirhindī, Shaykh Aḥmad, 159

al-Ṣūfī, Abū Hāshim al-Kūfī, 252

Suhrawardī, Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar, 39, 326

Suhrawardī, Shaykh al-ishrāq Yaḥyā Shihāb al-Dīn, 34, 35,

36, 176, 273, 288, 322, 329, 343, 353, 357, 390

al-Sulamī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 30, 31, 32, 33, 41, 261

Sumnūn, 234, 267

al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 78, 150

al-Ṭabarsī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl, 36, 46

Tabrīzī, Shams al-Dīn, 272

al-Ṭāʾī, Dāwūd, 249

al-Taqī, Imam Muḥammad Jawād, 160

al-Tawḥīdī, Abū Ḥayyān, 264

828
al-Ṭayyib, 181

al-Tirmidhī, Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad, 104, 147

al-Tirmidhī, al-Ḥakīm, 31, 256, 257, 276, 277

al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, 173–74

al-Ṭūsī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, 36, 46, 105

al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn, 392, 396

al-Tustarī, Sahl, 30, 31, 32, 35, 40, 41, 44, 260

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭtāb, 86, 157, 158

ʿUmar, 94, 95, 148, 149, 227, 245, 246

ʿUmar al-Fārūq, 149

Umm Ayman, 92

Usāmah ibn Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, 90, 92, 94, 95

ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffan, 85–86, 94

ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn, 227

ʿUthmān al Ghaniy, 148, 149, 154, 245

829
Wahb, 71

Walad, Sulṭān, 388, 404, 407, 409

Waraqah, 71, 72

al-Wāsiṭi, Abū Bakr, 31

Wuhayb, 71, 72

Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn. See Suhrawardī

Yazīd, 168, 170

Zayd, 3, 74

al-Zamakhsharī, 395

Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, 76, 82

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, Imam ʿAlī, 29, 160, 178, 247, 248, 326

Zaynab, 171, 207, 245

Zubayr, 70

Zubaydah, 208, 209

Zuhrah, 71

830